Chapter Text
Mariah managed to contain her giddiness until she was in her motel room and no longer had any witnesses to watch her dance around and pump her fists in delight. When she walked into the post-office a couple hours ago to check that PO box, she couldn’t have anticipated that the day she had waited years for had finally arrived. The advance preparations had been completed years ago, and since then it had been a long, frustrating wait for the last vital piece to fall into place.
Her divine whim told her in its usual wordless way—today would be the day.
She took the newspaper-wrapped lump from its manila envelope to reveal the force catcher inside, and her heart jumped to see which one it was. Most of the catchers—either allotted to her or made herself—were made from a quartz base, pretty but ordinary. This had been one of Mariah’s own creations, a beautiful watermelon tourmaline she had almost decided to keep for herself to wear on her vessel. Almost, except the divine whim had told her to make the artifact and send it out. So she had. Now, she was proved correct in doing so.
Mariah examined the artifact. Filled catchers always had a visual depth empty ones lacked. In this one, liquid clouds swirled under the pink and pale green facets, and when Mariah squinted closely, she swore she saw tiny eyes like dark stars blinking in out of existence and fluttering patterns of light and shadow. Gorgeous. It was no heavier than the empty catcher she had sent out. Nonetheless, Mariah felt its conceptual weight. That was the elegance of her Archangel’s Word right there. With some basic supplies and the simple application of Technology, Mariah could hold a being of celestial power—one almost certainly containing more forces than herself—in the palm of her hand.
Of course, with her assignment, the holding could never be permanent. Not usually, anyway. Mariah had a quota, a time limit, and the threat of becoming a part of the experiment should she fail to achieve the one within the confines set by the other. While only the weak feared the table, the smart understood that experimentation was a trial best undertaken by others. Mariah was smart. Therefore, the quotas always came first.
This run, her quota called for two Hives to be retrieved with the specified delivery date coming up within the week. She already had two in her case and plans to jump back down to Tartarus tomorrow. The latest one made a last-minute third on top of the satisfied quota. Thus, Mariah’s day had arrived.
When she first started this job about a decade-and-a-half ago, Mariah would have simply turned in all three specimens. She might have thought to build up a little extra credit with her supervisor. Maybe she could get promoted out of this hazardous but menial assignment. Failing that, she might have thought the excess could demonstrate to those watching that an annoying bit of Discord would never get in the way of Mariah’s service to the Genius Archangel. She had been naive then, and the passing years had demonstrated the following principles: First, Djinn supervisors in general gave the bare minimum of credit; second, Tizzy specifically gave none; and third, no one who made an issue of Mariah’s meaningless little Discord cared about anything else.
She had no incentive to do more than meet her quotas. Surviving another round of dangerous dead-end grunt work led only to more dangerous dead-end grunt work. Doing it well led only to higher demands and shorter deadlines. It might not seem fair on the surface, but that was the nature of tests. The weak complained. The strong learned, adapted, and changed the circumstances to better suit them. Good performance didn’t lead to a better assignment, so Mariah would seek out her own research project. That could catch the approval of the Genius Archangel. That in turn could get her out from underneath the talons of her current boss, and then she could finally get this…flaw of hers repaired.
This assignment was a test. She would endure it for as long as she had to, and then she would overcome. That was the nature of being an angel in Hell, after all.
Mariah opened her case and viewed the two other specimens: A smoky quartz and a rose quartz both with the same distinctive cloudy swirls as the tourmaline joining them. The sight of the three together pleased her, and she paused for a moment to let herself taste the satisfaction, and then another moment to steady her shaking hands. A voiceless divine whim had driven her existence since the Genius Archangel first put her forces together, and now it whispered at her that this was the moment. One of these was meant to be hers. Mariah had only to choose.
Her Archangel would probably not care for the siphoning of a stray specimen, but God...God would understand and approve of her taking the initiative.
But which was the right one?
All of them were worth admiring, though no crystal could compare to the full glory of a Kyriotate’s celestial form. All made her mood ring glow with the sickly yellow green of fear. That was typical of collected specimens. Most started off so full of bluster and curses, but all eventually surrendered to silent fear as escape attempts depleted their essence, and freedom became less and less likely.
Years and quotas later, and Mariah mostly thought of the specimens she captured as interchangeable objects. One was always as good as another except for the few that inconveniently Fell. But the voice of God in her head told her to slow down and choose wisely.
Not that Mariah needed to slow down. She had known her decision from the moment she unwrapped the newspaper and seen which crystal had come back to her.
The quartzes were two her supervisor had provided, made haphazardly out of the cheapest stone Tizzy could find. No reason to waste resources on someone else’s work equipment had been the Djinn’s rationale. As a result, the catchers were effective but not special.
Mariah remembered the tourmaline’s history. She had bought that beautiful stone at a steep discount from a human supplier Infatuated with her. The finished catcher had been first sold to a Fearful woman, who had already felt in her bones that every misfortune was the result of an evil spirit tormenting her. It had taken just the smallest bit of encouragement from Mariah to cement that emotion. Right there, that was an illustration of her skills and strength as one of God’s chosen in Hell. That such an auspicious artifact came back to her filled, first time out, that was a sign.
Those two in the quartzes had been Outcasts and as needlessly hostile as any other specimen she had caught up to this point. They hadn’t even given any names, not that Mariah had bothered to ask. They were interchangeable. Names, reactions, distinguishing features, all signs of individuality eventually became irrelevant as the specimens’ loose forces were stripped down and homogenized. That’s why Tizzy had taught her to follow the rumors of Outcasts, and focus her hunts on those whom Heaven had already abandoned. That would work for most experiments, where one Kyriotate would be as good as the next.
But Mariah needed a specific kind of Kyriotate for her project. Her ideal specimen would not be Outcast, the better to minimize the Fall risk when working with them extensively. One who could manage a bit of civility and be convinced to follow basic instructions would be vital as well. That left only one candidate of the three.
The one in the tourmaline had given a name—Kira—and Mariah mouthed it out a few times and smiled at how her vessel’s lips wrapped around the syllables like a kiss. That Hive had managed a bit of polite conversation in the car, even through the fear. If Kira had told the truth about her status, not only was the Hive not Outcast, she was neither Dissonant nor Discordant.
And oh, Mariah could confirm that soon enough, once they were back in Tartarus.
Yes, Kira was too valuable a specimen to be utilized for ordinary research. That one needed a project worthy of her. How appropriate that she would be the one to come in above quota and be the extra. Mariah had trusted her divine whims to point her to the correct choice. And, in the end, it had.
After all, Kira had come to her in the prettiest crystal.