CHAPTER THREE

Mea Culpa

She'd just killed a man. And memories of doing it came flooding back to her. The horrid screams of agony, the blood being splashed by the rotating blades, the chips of bone and teeth flying back into her face.

Feeling like she may faint, and Elsa wished she had, she instead retched all over the cobblestone of her hideout. Once, and then twice.

Falling to her knees, she stared at her own mess, but she did not see it. All she saw was herself slaughtering someone. No, no, it wasn't slaughter. It was an accident. She would have never intentionally… it was not her fault. She was not responsible for their deaths; they were going to kill her. All she was doing was protecting herself.

And she had to find Anna. At any cost. But she couldn't let her know that she killed someone while trying to find her. She would be devastated to know that. It was still an accident. And not one that Elsa was willing to repeat.

Gathering herself, she closed up her jacket, covering the worst of the mess. She'd need a change of clothes eventually, if she was going to keep this quiet. But right now she had to get away. She was too close to the police and they were going to catch up to her.

So far so good, she could just sneak through most of these buildings and get to the tram that would take her to the island. No one was around-

"Call out the Fireman!"

Elsa didn't know what they yelled that for, but whatever it was, it was certainly chasing her. She ran up to the next closed gate and used a good portion of her strength to push it open. Sweat dripped from her brow.

Why was it so warm all of a sudden?

The answer to her question lay before her. This entire section of the city was set ablaze. How did this happen?

"Burn in the name of the queen!"

Elsa silently screamed and ran for cover behind a food cart as a ball of fire was hurled right towards her. She looked to the other side, fearing what was there, but needing to know. It was one of those strange gadgets she saw at the fair. A large mechanical suit holding one frail old man with a long gaunt nose.

"Come back here! You shall be judged!" He threw flames at her only cover, and she continued to run, covering her head.

"Stop! Please!"

Of course her pleas went unheard, and the "Fireman" continued to bombard her with his attacks.

"Why won't you die? I keep killing you, over and over, and you just won't DIE!"

"You're crazy!" Elsa shouted, diving from behind a wooden carriage as it was engulfed in a fiery explosion. The flames rose, higher and higher, a wall of searing heat-

The old man shook his head, violently, grabbing at his face, not seeming to notice as his skin was burned a bright red. "It's not my fault! I'm not to blame! It's her, she's the witch!"

Elsa stared; the flames were twisting, forming the image of a young woman, hair loose and down to her shoulders, running her hands sensually down her sides. Her head was buzzing, there was a ringing in her ears and suddenly the world seemed to be spinning upside-down.

She managed to get out from his sight behind a statue next to the stairs. He was going to find her eventually, but she was running on adrenaline only at this point, and needed to catch her breath. What was he on about? First she's a "false queen" and now she was a "witch"? How many more people were going to blame her for something she didn't do? Not that she was one to talk...

Covering her ears from the next blast nearby, she shouted back at the Fireman. "We are all responsible for our actions!" If she could play on his obvious psychological instability, she figured she might just survive.

The flames morphed once more, losing their quality and becoming red-robed figures, each the size of a building. There wasn't enough room in the alleyway for all these people, she was sure, but it seemed unimportant in the face of these imposing faceless beings.

"Mea culpa," they chanted. "Mea culpa."

"No!" the Fireman shouted once more, his face twisting in desperation. "God made the devil so much stronger than a man!"

The robes melted together, a column of roiling fire reaching directly into the sky, tendrils curling around both the Fireman and Elsa herself. The flames seared her arm, and she grabbed at the scorched flesh, screaming.

Then the fire died away. Elsa blinked and coughed in the smoke, though it soon coalesced into the figure of the sensual woman.

"Be mine," the Fireman whispered to the smoke. The figure beckoned; he leaned his face to hers, as though for a kiss, and then the figure burst into flame. His head was covered with fire, and he screamed, clawing at his face, digging furrows into his flesh.

"BURN!" he shouted, stumbling, bursts of flame shooting from his hands in every direction. "BURN!"

He gave one last, anguished cry before falling to the ground, the smell of burned skin and flesh still emanating from his corpse.

The initial shock and trauma from these events were quickly wearing off, and Elsa started to feel her burned arm again. She hissed in pain, clutching it close to her body, keeping the Sky Hook under her elbow. Her eyes caught sight of a red bottle which had slipped from the Fireman's suit, and she picked it up.

"Devil's Kiss," she read. Another one of those vigors. The first one had made her feel good...she wondered if it might take away the ache from her arm. Before she could rethink her decision, she poured the bottle down her throat and gagged. Her arm felt like it was going to explode, and then as fast as the pain worsened, the pain vanished, leaving a fuzzy sensation in its wake.

She was meant to be doing something, wasn't she? She examined her hand, which seemed to be burned down to the bone. That was a problem. Water would probably help, she thought, flexing the digits absently.

There had to be a water source somewhere within a restaurant, right? And there was a restaurant conveniently placed nearby, called The Blue Ribbon. She staggered towards the door, fumbled with the handle, and opened it.

Elsa ignored everything around her and made her way behind the bar inside the hall, shakily turning on the running water. She left the water hot, gradually making it cooler. It stung, and as the water ran over her hand, the fuzzy euphoria of the vigor began to wear off.

God, she'd been foolish, taking a vigor whose effects she didn't even know. And the worst part was that she already wanted more of the vigor-induced euphoria.

"We've got company."

"I noticed."

Elsa looked up, staring wide-eyed and confused at… the Bjorgman twins. How did they get here? The better question was why were they just carrying on with their day as if flaming chaos didn't just happen outside their door? And the better question yet, "Are… are you following me? Why?"

"We were already here." stated Krista, matter of factly. That much was obvious, of course they were already there.

"Why are you following us?" Kristoff asked accusingly. As if Elsa had reason to follow them.

"I-I wasn't…"

"You look like you've seen better days. Thirsty?" Krista held up a golden bottle, and Elsa took it, drinking from it without a second thought. It wasn't a vigor, but it still gave a soothing sensation to her injured arm.

"What was that?"

"Well, what do you know? It didn't kill her."

"That magnetic stuff tends to do the body good."

"Yeah. If it doesn't kill you, of course."

Feeling better after that last swig, Elsa left them to their back-and-forth one-sided conversation with each other, making her way to the exit of the restaurant. She was outside, but that was both good and bad. Good, because she spotted where the gondola and tram station was. Bad, on account of the scouting dirigibles flying about. She wasn't sure if they were looking for her, but they were definitely shouting warnings to the civilians about her.

Given that those warnings were about conspicuous lesbianism and the French, she wasn't overly worried.

She was busy making herself scarce behind the railing of the stairs before realizing that this was the end of the line and she had no way of continuing. She couldn't backtrack either. If she did then she'd have to retrace her steps all the way to the Raffle Square and that was the absolute last place she needed to be.

If worse came to worse, she could always make a stairway to… no. That was the worst idea she had yet. That would only draw more attention and lead everyone straight to her. If she did that, then she may as well have danced and yelled for the police to come and kill her.

Scanning the area, she noticed the Sky Hooks and Sky Rails, the latter of which had boxes of cargo being transported across the city. She looked to her own hook. The policemen had these hooks with them for travelling efficiently around the city on the Sky Rails without the use of crosswalks or bridges. Genius, really. And here she thought it was just for rearranging the faces of their victims.

If she did this right, she could swing from building to building. Looking down to estimate how far she had to fall before hitting the ocean, she gulped back her nervousness. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. For Anna.

Worry still spread across her face, taking a few steps backwards to get a good running start. Her back was now against the wall. The only way was forward.

Keeping an eye on the closest Sky Hook allowed Elsa to stay oriented, and she ran as fast as she could, jumping off the edge of the platform at the last possible inch. That second and a half of being airborne seemed like ages, and yet she still didn't have time to be concerned about if she'd make it or not. It was too late for that.

And before she could think again, she realized she connected with the first hook, and with quite the ease at that. She dangled there for a moment, marvelling at her own dexterity to pull off such a feat.

Amazement towards herself gave Elsa a burst of energy to carry on and swing to the next hook. Then the next one. Until finally the last one she could reach. It was a clumsy and hard landing, but she managed not to break anything. She'd have to be extra careful next time.

She walked down the sidewalk. It led her to the outside of an eerily dark building, with tens if not hundreds of crows flocking all around it.

Crows never bothered Elsa. She actually found them to be quite intelligent birds. Surely they wouldn't be so bold as to fly into the building if people were inside. Elsa took that as clear evidence that it was safe for her to cut through here to make it to the gondola.

This place sure had its fair share of disturbing imagery, sneaking through it. While it appeared to have had a great deal of money put into it, the place was in terrible condition, even from only just recent abandonment. There were feathers, trash, and dried bird excrement all over the floors. It put a more literal meaning to the phrase "filthy rich".

Aside from the birds, the rooms seemed to still be abandoned, with the exception of one lone radio being left on. Elsa caught most of it through the static as she slipped through the room.

"...this afternoon, the scoundrel, believed now by many to be Vox Populi, began her terrible rampage… She is considered brimming with danger and evil intent…"

She was getting fed up from listening to those lies and propaganda being spread about her, and hopped into the first elevator she saw. Alone with her thoughts to let the headline sink in at that quiet moment. The nerve of these people. Brimming with danger and evil intent, indeed. And whatever the Vox Populi was, they clearly didn't do their research. She didn't even know who they were.

The elevator stopped on one of the next floors up. Hopefully the exit would be on this floor, and she could forget about this creepy place. She couldn't even guess which door could lead to outside, so she picked one, regretting it seconds later.

The door was chained, but Elsa saw enough that any person wiser would have turned and run. A bare-chested man was strapped to a wall by his wrists and ankles, screaming and sobbing for mercy.

From beyond Elsa's vision, a murder of crows launched themselves at him, scratching off hunks of skin, gouging his eyes with their beaks, and drilled their way into his body until he was nothing but hunks of flesh linked by thin threads of skin. All of that caught within a second of peeking through that door before she had to squeeze her eyes shut to protect herself from the blood and feathers flying through the crack.

When Elsa opened one eye, before her stood an extravagant, dark woman with glowing green eyes, and red lips to match the blood on her crows' beak, looking right at her.

She was caught, but by who, she didn't know. Her first instinct was to turn and run, but she was frozen in her tracks, her wide eyes locked onto the dazzling ones before her. The woman grinned, as if she knew of Elsa's darkest secrets and was taunting her with every single one of them.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed during those moments, but soon enough the woman had disappeared, and all that was there was the crow she was holding, flying away into a brighter area which Elsa couldn't view. She pondered for a moment if the woman was even there to begin with, before an intriguing, fiery, green orb appeared in her place.

Elsa could feel her eyes dilate as she watched the ball of light flicker, in such a way that it was the only thing that gave her reason to be. She found the true thing she'd been looking for her entire life, and she didn't know it until that moment. Any thoughts of Anna, any fears she had, even the man she had killed, all that had been and all that would be were meaningless.

The orb pulsed with light, and Elsa took a step forward.