Chapter Text
Mariah was sure she had reworked these exact same tasers not even a year before—if not these ones specifically, then some that had been built to an identical template. They were familiar enough to her that she could disassemble them, identify the decayed components, and replace the faulty parts in the midst of a Choirmate-induced panic attack. She knew because she had done it.
The routine task kept her hands busy and let her brain concentrate on the persistent and difficult problem before her, specifically the problem inside her and a bit down. The past two weeks had felt like playing a game of Bot Chicken with Kira, and the sudden drop was coming up way too fast for Mariah’s comfort.
Kira wanted them both to leave with the audit next week as her hard deadline. Mariah wanted Kira to promise to stay first, but of course Kira hadn’t made that promise yet, not even when offered the thing she claimed to want most. It was for the best, probably. Mariah still couldn’t figure out how she was meant to save Kira, save herself, and save a half-dozen or so other specimens whose attitudes towards Mariah when she had caught them had ranged from quietly hostile to very, very loudly hostile.
The divine whims told her to Resonate. Give Kira the right emotion and she’d fall in line to give Mariah what she wanted. It made sense at a high-level, but the problem came from figuring out emotion to bestow.
Anything that ran up against her Discord—fear, anger, sorrow—could be ruled out for practical reasons. The Essence usage for one. It would take Mariah’s full-reserves to push the emotion outward past the point of her Discord-induced conscience. The efficacy for another. Negative emotions often made for effective deterrence against undesirable behaviors in isolation but seldom served as incentive for long-term desirable ones.
For that end, a positive emotion would be more effective, except that Kira always did try to bounce those back on Mariah—something the Kyriotate never seemed to have difficulty doing once she put her mind to it. That was always a shame. If Mariah could pin Kira down and reliably keep her Happy for a few days a time; Kira might eventually accept her place at Mariah’s side, and the issue would be solved. Love would be the obvious choice. Too bad that would also be the worst one to have backfire. In this standoff, Mariah could not afford to be overwhelmed by Love.
The tasers almost repaired themselves under her adept hands, but no matter how much Mariah pored over the pros and cons to all the emotions her Resonance could bring about, an effective solution continued to elude her.
Still, the voice of God told her to wait a bit longer. The perfect emotion was out there waiting for Mariah to find it. She just had to have faith.
In the meantime, Mariah had yet more preparations to make.
—
In between the refurbishment of the last batch of tasers now resting in a box by the door and their delivery to Tizzy at the last possible second, Mariah set up the equipment for a more personal project: A small pot of expensive specialty paint in the worst color and an airbrush machine that made its application barely tolerable. The former had cost Mariah nearly half her Essence for a tiny pot, and the latter she had ‘borrowed’ from the IT supply closet.
Then, Mariah disassembled a part of herself. It hurt slightly to take the apparatus out of her chest and lay each major component—the wire cage door that allowed for access to Kira, the front plastic shield that gave the door its structural integrity, the bracing that kept the Force Catcher stable, and the back plastic shield that held the bracing in place—down on the table. Unease rose in her almost like corporeal nausea. The feeling surprised Mariah. After all, this wasn’t her first time upgrading one of her body mods. She used to change out her claws at the end of each quota hunt back when she thought her success there might mean something.
On reflection though, that initial reaction made sense. The space she made for Kira wasn’t like her past modifications at all. Those had been mere surface decorations, whereas this one had been designed to be a functional piece permanently incorporated into her anatomy.
Not to mention, this was purely a utilitarian change; Mariah detested the paint’s color—it had been chosen based on price alone. If she’d could have afforded to indulge her aesthetic sense, she might have chosen ones to match the stone of Kira’s Force Catcher—a delicate gradation of pink into green, and it would feel easier to justify this effort to herself. One whim already called this whole ordeal useless. Why waste so much time and Essence when these changes might only matter for a few more days?
Because fuck Impudites, that’s why. Mariah didn’t need any other reason than that, not a single one.
“What are you doing?” One of Kira’s voices broke out through the snippets of humming and singing she did when it was just them. Mariah’s mood ring glowed with the lemon yellow of curiosity.
Mariah almost denied her, the way she had ignored Kira’s inquisitive hums earlier while she was procuring supplies, but the Kyriotate had been despondent of late, and any bright emotion seemed smart to indulge. “I’m Impudite-proofing you.”
“Impudite-proofing?”
“Yes. My archangel gives all of his Takers those stupid glasses that detect Essence, which is how they know I’m carrying more Essence than my expected capacity any time you ride around in me. So, I bought some very expensive paint that should absorb whatever wavelength those glasses pick up on and now I’m going to use it to update my mod to hide you better.”
“I see. That makes a lot of sense.” Kira’s main voice pauses. The silence filled up again with a bit of disco and snippets of what Mariah thought could be a Song—though what kind of Song a Kyriotate would just idly perform when the Force Catcher negated Song effects entirely, she didn’t know. “What color?”
That shook Mariah out of her speculation. “Excuse me?”
“What color is the paint?”
Mariah sighed and scratched her nails lightly against the table top. She wanted to convey to Kira her exasperation with the question. “Fluorescent yellow. The kind they make the Calabite mercs from Fire wear while they’re in the Principality.”
“Oh, that’s not bad.”
Mariah mixed the paint with the suggested thinner—which had been another Essence—and loaded it into the airbrush. “Not that bad? Are you kidding me? It’s the worst color! That’s why it’s the cheapest. Even the unpigmented base is more expensive.”
“I don’t know, I’ve always liked those kinds of neon—”
Mariah turned on the airbrush. The sooner those plastic shields were covered, the sooner they could leave her sight, and if Kira wanted to be wrong, she could be wrong all she wanted over the noise of the compressor.
—
As usual, the first sign of the impending intruders upon Mariah’s space was Kira’s abrupt shift from casual song and chatter to complete silence.
“It’s probably them.” Mariah set aside her current repair project—a prod used to direct the Ofanim in the secured area—and reached for her sunglasses. An affirmative hum in her chest confirmed her speculation. There must be some discussion going on just outside in voices too low for Mariah to hear but loud enough for her Kyriotate’s pinpoint hearing to catch.
It was an interminable fifteen or so seconds that passed before someone finally input the door code. Mariah recognized the Impudite who entered on sight. Sure, half the male Takers in this facility wore too-tight turtlenecks this year, but only Jeff had the audacity to sport that atrocious attempt at a mustache, and he had been the one to sell her his ticket to the Robot wars a couple weeks ago.
“Here to offer me a refund?” Mariah put a sneer on her face, like she was doing him a favor to acknowledge his presence.
“Not likely. You got your Essence’s worth.” He stepped through the threshold. “I’m here for your—”
That must have been the cue because right behind him to catch the door before it closed was a Lilim—Brenda according to Kira’s data—half-breathless as she followed in just on the Impudite’s wing-tips. She had a pointed and pinched face, a poofy helmet of hair, and a short dress 10 years past fashionable up on the corporeal. All of it was within expectations for the Free Lilim who were stationed at the reception desk, and Mariah wouldn’t have recognized her as the one she had bumped into a few months ago, much less had any clue that she was involved with the Game, if not for Kira’s warning.
The Lilim was a decent actress. If Mariah hadn’t known otherwise, she might have even mistaken that sudden entrance as an earnest and impulsive attempt to stop the Impudite. At least for a few moments before sense took over again. After all, who in Hell ever looked out for someone else without ulterior motive? No one, not even Kira, the little Heaven-Angel who lived in her chest, did that.
Mariah sat up and squared her shoulders. The Impudite and the Lilim had their roles in the confrontation and now it was time for Mariah to play hers. Not that it was difficult. She started with best resigned sigh, like these two were interrupting some time-sensitive project. “You’re here for my what?”
The Impudite tapped his standard-issue prod against the palm of his free hand—a threat both obvious and laughable. Like most of the Impudites, Jeff was assigned to one of the human floors, and unlike the one set down on the worktable behind her—which was powerful enough to subdue any specimen in the Secured Area—his was designed with human limitations in mind. “Nothing much. Just that power source of yours. We can work something out, right?” An adorable little arc of green lightning sparked out the business end of his weapon.
Mariah glanced towards the device. Aside from a few cosmetic changes—she had stenciled some designs on it with the leftover paint—it looked the same as it always had.
Brenda the Lilim waited half a beat and chimed in, “You don’t have to give it to him!”
“Like Hell, she doesn’t!” Jeff turned back to Mariah. “Hand it over! And disable that stupid electrical field while you’re at it.”
Mariah's hesitation was only mostly for show. That device had been her masterwork, and it had served her purposes well these past few years, keeping Kira in and snoopy bastards like Jeff the Impudite out. Even with it now obsolete and unsuited for its intended use, Mariah still looked at it fondly. Even useless, it made for a wonderful trophy.
Still, that hesitation was a show nonetheless. What needed to be done would be done. She observed the Impudite out of the corner of her eye, and silently counted down from five as his patience with her decayed. At the very edge of that patience—when his demeanor in her ring started to shift from orange to red—Mariah turned her attention to Brenda-the-Lilim.
The demon made her offer. “He owes me several favors. For a small price, I can make him back down.”
“What would it cost?”
“One week.”
One week wasn’t a terrible price. If Kira had still been in a box, that would have been a downright bargain to keep her secret safe. After all, a week-Geas could only get Mariah into a limited amount of trouble compared to what would happen if someone found out about her Heaven-angel. But Kira wasn’t in there anymore, and the week-Geas wasn’t the low price the Lilim wanted to frame it as either. In fact, it was incredibly pricey for what was now a cube of mechanical tinkering and sentimental value wrapped around a few bargain-pile spirit batteries.
Mariah shook her head. “No thanks. I was mostly done with it anyway.” She picked up the case from its usual spot on the worktable and turned back to Jeff the Impudite. She smiled the sweetest smile she could muster up. “Now did you want some blank tapes too, or were you just wanting to scrap it for parts?”
“I don’t need the tapes. Just the box without that blessed electrical field.”
Mariah went through the familiar sequence. Her steel claws scraped against the side of the box nostalgically. Yes, it had served its purpose well, but now it was time to let it go. “There. No more electric field.”
The Impudite happily took possession of the box. Any more pleased, and he might have Charmed her by accident—though thankfully he didn’t. “I knew we’d come to a deal. Good luck.”
With that, he turned on his heel and walked out of her workroom, Kira’s old home in his hands. Mariah didn’t tell him to be careful when he opened the box. If he couldn’t figure that out for himself by the time he had a chance to disassemble it, he deserved the consequences.
And that left Mariah alone with the Lilim—and Kira, of course. Always Kira.
Once the door latched shut again, Brenda-the-Lilim dropped the friendly, concerned facade. And oh, if she hadn’t been Geased to get a hook on Mariah, that expression would have reflected the deep red rage creeping into Mariah’s ring. As it was, Brenda-the-Lilim’s fixed grimace bore more resemblance to a baring of teeth than any kind of smile. “Giving into a demon, just like that? That was unwise of you.”
“I was done with it anyway.” Mariah shrugged and turned back to her work. She had made her choice, and now she could be done with this farce of a conversation.
Brenda-the-Lilim, however, was apparently not done with her. One slender hand came down on Mariah’s shoulder and she was forced face-to-face with that Lilim. The Lilim’s other hand tilted those cheap sunglasses up, and Mariah couldn’t help but expose her gaze to those deep green eyes. The Lilim’s bared teeth widened into a nasty smile, and when she spoke again, her voice was sweet as aspartame.
“Tell me, sweetheart, who is it you want by your side? I could bind him to you.”
A burn of embarrassment went up Mariah’s face. Of all the possible Needs for the Lilim to pick up on, of course it would be that one. Annoying as tinted lenses could be in a dim workroom, Mariah should have welded them to her body. Possibly she would if she survived this. No one should be able to see that deeply into her, especially if they were just going to announce her Needs like that in front of the most humiliating possible audience.
Vibrations coursed through Mariah’s whole body. That was Kira buzzing. It was apparently inaudible to Brenda-the-Lilim and impossible to ignore for Mariah. No, there was no way that Kira wouldn’t overhear this. How fucking embarrassing indeed.
“Come on, darling,” The Lilim’s voice went soft, almost pleading. If not for her ring, Mariah could almost take that behavior for pity. “I can see in your eyes how much you Need him with you. There’s no point in denying yourself. I can help you keep him. A week-Geas would be a bargain.”
The faint voice of God in her head pushed Mariah to accept. This was a solution to the problem that continued to vex her; perhaps it was the only one. With the Lilim’s help, maybe Mariah could pin Kira down until the Kyriotate finally realized they were meant to stay together for the rest of their lives. A week wasn’t much at all, and what did it matter to Mariah if the Game used her to sabotage this place and steal all the Heaven-angels for themselves? Everyone here treated her badly anyway. Maybe this way she could have her revenge and she’d get to keep her Kyrio—
No, Mariah realized against the flow of her divine whim, she wouldn’t. Brenda-the-Lilim was working on behalf the Game, and that Word had no use for Heaven-angels in Hell. She might be allowed to keep a corrupted version of Kira—all slime and ooze and singularity like a disk drive infected by a particularly sticky virus—but the resulting Shedite would no longer be her Kira.
Still, that faint whim prompted, if the Kyriotate wouldn’t promise to stay and Mariah had to lose her anyway, then maybe she deserved to—
Kira’s humming escalated in both pitch and distress; her opinion on the matter made obvious without words. A magenta shade of smugness crept into Mariah’s ring, and the Lilim whose mood it reflected loosened her grip, like she was sure that Mariah would inevitably accept the bargain she had laid out. That made Mariah step back and take another look at the offer. How desperately did Mariah need Kira right now, and how could she guarantee that the week-Geas would the only one?
No. Pursuing those questions would only lead to disaster. A better one to ask was: Could the Lilim even follow through? Mariah knew the answer deep down, and that fact let her find her sneer. She was an angel in Hell with an actual Heaven-Angel living in her chest, and Brenda-the-Lilim was merely a demon trying to tempt her with an offer she couldn’t even fulfill. “I don’t Need your help with anything. You want some extra hooks? Go find a gremlin.”
Mariah slid the sunglasses back down her nose and turned away from the now sputtering Lilim. Oh, Brenda-the-Lilim had been so sure of her victory. Too many Media-produced soap operas about the desperate measures a fool in love would take had likely rotted her brain to the point that she could mistake Mariah for one of those.
A bit of satisfaction bubbled up in her. Mariah had proved she was no one’s fool—for love or otherwise.
“You might want to get back to the reception desk,” Mariah said with faux helpfulness, as she went back to her repair work. The finicky piece of equipment in front of her needed attention, and this was the first time working with one in this poor condition. “Contractors aren’t supposed to be up here anyway, and Tizzy really doesn’t like it when others encroach on her deadlines.”
With that, Mariah was content to let the Lilim fume. It would take a while to get this prod working again, and if Brenda-the Lilim were still there by the time that happened, Mariah would be more than happy to show her just how much more potent the sticks used in the Secured Area were compared to the dinky little tools Jeff the Impudite and his ilk carried around.
—
Mariah was about three-quarters done with the wiring situation before Brenda-the-Lilim finally gave up and left, and it wasn’t until Mariah had finished reassembling the prod and given it a test fire before she felt comfortable tapping out the safety signal again.
“You handled that well.” Kira said with a precise and qualifying tone. Heaven-angels would get Dissonance for lying in Helltongue and Kira would never risk slipping over an exaggerated compliment. Mariah had done as well as—or better than—expected, but the Kyriotate hadn’t been any more pleased with the Lilim’s offer than Mariah had. “You’ve managed to avoid any hooks for now at least.” Her main voice paused for a beat. “She’s not going to give up.”
Mariah’s hands flexed on the table. “No. I know that. If she’s Geas-bound to get that hook on me, she’ll have to try again, and soon. Her deadline is the same as ours.” Mariah stood up and swung the prod about experimentally, and found herself straining to control it. “What do you think her next scheme is?”
Kira paused for a few beats—having some kind of internal discussion, Mariah hypothesized. “I can’t say for certain. She might get your local unfriendly Habbalah to harass you again. We did overhear her talking to them while doing the set up.”
Mariah scoffed. Choirmate-induced emotions were rarely fun to cope with, but if her last fifteen years as a preferred target had taught Mariah anything, it was how to carry on despite those. Sure, it would suck to be plunged into the depths of whatever emotion Sven or Zarielle thought to give her next, but what could the Lilim have them inflict on Mariah that would be worse than her average Wednesday in Hell?
Still, did Mariah want to run through Plan B or find out what Brenda-the-Lilim’s Plans C, D, and on down to Omega were? No, she did not, but she could deal. Like every other situation on Hell or Earth (and probably Heaven), this was just another test. Be strong. Endure. Overcome.
“I’ll handle it,” Mariah said in her most reassuring voice.
Kira was not reassured. “Or you could just get the Hell out of here. You’re running out of time and options.”
Her divine whims scoffed at that. Mariah couldn’t leave now. Where would she even go as a Renegade, and if she couldn’t face with this situation with the Lilim, then how could she handle the more direct attention she’d get from both the Game and the Genius Archangel? What about Kira? The Kyriotate still hadn’t promised anything, and waiting out the deadline was Mariah’s only leverage.
On the other hand, if Mariah wanted to keep even the remotest chance of her Kyriotate staying with her, she needed to make her exit before that Lilim or anyone associated with her had a chance to discover Kira. A Shedite wouldn’t be the same. And what had the whims done for her lately? Pushed her to wait until demons caught her up in petty schemes and encouraged her to make bad bargains, that’s what. After she spent so many years of following their guidance, their recent unreliability frustrated Mariah. She shouldn’t be stuck moving against their flow to do what was best for her and Kira. God should want her to succeed.
Mariah inhaled deeply and made her decision with the exhale. “Yes, we’ll leave today.”
“Are you ready for that?” Kira asked, as if she weren’t the one pushing for this course of action not even a second ago.
No, Mariah wasn’t ready; she just wouldn’t let that stop her now. She was one of God’s chosen, and she wouldn’t back down from a challenge. “I’m not weak as you think I am, Kira. I’ll get this done.” Her body moved on auto-pilot as she dug out her supplies, never mind her trembling hands. She took another breath and tried to banish the never-ending list of everything that could go wrong in the next five minutes: Tizzy could block Mariah’s path and send her away with another urgent task; one of the Heaven-angels in the Secured Area could attempt to make a run for it thus triggering lockdown before Mariah can complete her escape; the Paper Shredder might not distract anyone; the Lilim—or someone who owed her—could be waiting just outside ready to coerce a Geas out of her.
Mariah could at least confirm or rule out that last one.
She turned off the radio. “Kira, is anyone outside?”
The Kyriotate in her chest quieted all at once. To Mariah, the silence of the workroom was merely a generic silence; to Kira, for whom sounds were one of her few connections to anything outside her, the silence would be a whole set of distinctive noises. Kira’s motives might be questionable, but her ears were trustworthy.
“You’re clear,” Kira said at last.
Mariah pushed open the door. The hallway was empty, and it only took a few steps to reach the threshold of Tizzy’s office. She calmed down slightly and repeated her hastily prepared excuse. She opened the door with exactly as much caution as she usually would. It probably wouldn’t be too difficult to sneak past the Djinn who was usually be too distracted by her crosswords to pay much attention to her expendable assistant. Mariah might not even need to explain anything. Even if she did, Mariah had the newly-repaired prod to turn in. This would be fine.
Tizzy’s desk was empty. Noises emanated from the supply closet.
“Lucifer bless it!” Mariah swore under her breath. She stepped back into the hallway and gently closed the door behind her. “Of all the days—”
Kira gave an inquisitive hum.
“She’s playing with the Paper Shredder right now,” Mariah explained to the contextless Kyriotate. “There’s no distracting her when she gets like that with an attuned.”
Kira gave a short, somewhat whiny hum.
Mariah shuddered. It had been more than a decade since she’d last been subject to that level of Tizzy’s attention, and she could almost feel sorry for the Destroyer for having it now. For that Djinn, the line between harassment and dissonant harm was an open field perfect for conducting experiments in. That would be one good thing about going Renegade—she’d never have to deal with Tizzy again.
“Tomorrow. We’ll leave tomorrow.”
—
The good news was that the delay gave Mariah time to prepare a better excuse. Audit season always meant more documents to destroy, and Mariah had previously done her unfair share of shredding and subsequent clean up. She’d not only have an excuse to be in Tizzy’s office, but one to be in that closet specifically. The bad news was that the better excuse involved going down to the office floor where the boxes held for incineration (or shredding) would be piled right up at the exit nearest the elevators, and that meant she’d have to pass by both the break room and reception on her way there.
Mariah tried to tell herself there was nothing to worry about. Brenda-the-Lilim could try her next scheme, but Mariah’s Choirmates had been torturing her for years, and she was used to it. If they hadn’t been rapidly bouncing her between three or four wildly contrasting emotional states, then they would have been testing one of R&Ds latest toys on her, and she had survived all of it so far. Whatever waited for her, Mariah could handle it and do what needed to be done. She was strong. She would endure. And she only had to cross the office floor twice to overcome. She could do this.
Still, Mariah instinctively flinched when she walked past the break room, a side-effect of her first years working at this facility back when she was naive enough to consider the coffee up here a lesser evil than the Cafeteria food downstairs. In a way, that was even useful. Sven and Zarielle might be able see her emotional state reflected on their rings, but there’d be nothing in what they picked up that would give her plans away. They were no more Elohite than she was to chase those feelings to their source.
Mariah kept walking. Maybe she would get lucky and avoid them.
“Hey, Mariah!” Sven called out to her. Kira had nicknamed him Wind Chime Habbie due to the noise his piercings made every time he moved his head or made a sweeping gesture, and Mariah had delighted in that small, well-deserved indignity. “Finally taking a break? Come and play with us!”
No. Of course not. Mariah keeps her gaze hard and her mouth fixed while she continued on her path. “Go bother someone else. I have actual work to do.”
Zarielle—no Kira-bestowed nickname for her, her tattoos of circuitry and eyes never made any noise—grabbed Mariah’s wrist and pulled her into the break room. The space was filled with sickly glow of the overhead lights and the liquid crackle of the coffee maker on its perpetual brew cycle. “You’re well aware of how this works. You don’t turn down an invitation to play.”
Mariah furrowed her brow. “So what about you two assholes? Don’t you have actual work to do?”
“There’s always time to play with you when you come down so rarely. Pass her to me, Zari.”
“My pleasure.” Zarielle shoved Mariah away from her and into Sven’s arms. He tightened his grip on each arm until Mariah felt herself wince from the pressure. “We’re doing this for your own good. The sooner you learn how to stop acting so superior, the less annoying you’ll get, and the less we’ll have to teach you these lessons.”
Mariah fixed her expression into grim impassivity and turned her gaze towards the ceiling. There was nothing interesting about either the beige panels or the long light fixtures above, but it gave her a place to focus. Whatever they did to her, she just had to get through this, pick up a box, and make her way to the Paper Shredder. No matter what emotion they threw at her, Mariah could manage to accomplish that—if not on her own, then with Kira’s help.
“I stay out of your way.” Mariah kept her voice firm. No matter how terrified she felt, showing it never appeased them. “All you have to do is not seek me out, and you’ll be less annoyed by me. Bonus, it’ll give you time to think of something new to do.”
Zarielle took Mariah’s chin between her thumb and forefinger and tilted her head back down to eye-level. Brenda-the-Lilim now stood at the far end of the room, just coincidentally pouring that heinous non-dairy creamer into a steaming styrofoam cup. That hand on her chin lay flat her cheek. “Something new, huh? There’s something I’ve always wanted to try, and since we know you can’t fight back very well…”
Behind her, Sven cackled directly into her ear. “Do it!”
A smirk crossed Zarielle’s face. “You heard him. Let’s see how you manage this one.”
Mariah braced herself for the impact of whatever excruciating emotion Zarielle had poured her Essence into. Except nothing had come. Instead, a leaden clarity settled over Mariah. She blinked a few times trying to figure out what was wrong. And once she understood, it took her a few more seconds to figure out why she should care. The divine whims—those increasingly vague and useless urges that drove her—should have pushed her into reacting by now. But they hadn’t. They were gone. Just completely absent. This wasn’t Kira’s perspective causing them to multiply and contradict each other. This wasn’t her Discord interrupting her innate connection to them. No, this failure was simpler than that and went far deeper. Zarielle’s resonance had cut her off entirely from the Godly instinct that should have guided her, and made her wonder if God had ever been behind her whims at all.
The divinity Mariah had been sure of since the moment her Archangel put her forces together began to corrode, if not fully—she couldn’t entirely accept that she might be a demon—then enough that she couldn’t dismiss the doubt that had started to shine in like the sickly green fluorescent light above her. Yes, it should have been obvious. A Habbalite was a fundamentally different kind of creature than any Heaven Angel. Mariah was no more like Kira than Kira was like a Balseraph. And every other celestial already knew it. How many times had Kira tried to tell her? Only Mariah—and those who shared her nature like Sven and Zarielle—remained unaware.
With her claim to an angelic state a probable delusion, another certainty Mariah clung tightly to this past decade and a half fell away from her fingertips. These hardships weren’t trials to conquer; they were simply her existence. No number of passed tests would restore what that first big mistake had cost her. She should have known that too. Science demanded nothing less than perfection from the Scientist. Not even momentary weakness could be forgiven. When her Discord first marred her, what had her Archangelic Prince done after he strapped her to the chair? He could have removed her Discord, but he hadn’t. Why would he? For him, it had been more interesting to switch around the nature of her Forces.
The test concept had just been an empty attempt on her part to deny the obvious: Her lifespan would be limited and finite, no matter how skilled she became. And she had become skilled. Had been useful. Had lasted longer than any of Tizzy’s other known assistants. She could track down and capture Heaven’s most elusive creatures, but what good would that be once the Game got their hands on her. Most Discords were just Discords, but hers marked her as a potential traitor to Hell. Her actual behavior wouldn’t matter. And when she looked at her recent behaviors? Her heart was upstairs ready to break. She housed an actual Heaven angel in her chest. No, skip potential; she already qualified as a traitor to Hell.
And what about Kira, and the hope Mariah held onto that the Heaven angel might stay with her? That was pointless as well. Never mind Mariah’s usual feelings towards her, to Kira, Mariah was merely her jailer and an unconventional type of host. Mariah finally saw the full implications of that term. Kyriotates helped their hosts, but Kyriotates used them as well. Used them and left them. By definition, that Kyriotate-host bond was temporary and Kira wasn’t even dissonance bound to leave Mariah better off.
And yet, all of these would-be symphony-shaking revelations rushing in all at once turned to dull facts against the lack of emotion forced on Mariah. She couldn’t feel angry at Kira or frightened of the Game or regret at the truth of her nature. She could only observe from a distance. Was this a Djinn feeling—a sort of default numbness towards anything not an obsession? Or was it more of an Elohite sensation—to have no emotions at all, just an empty set of eyes looking ‘objectively’ out onto the world?
That at least made her slightly uncomfortable.
Sven still stood behind her, holding her arm twisted behind her back. She’d been in this position recently—not even a year ago in fact. But it was different. That Malakite had only been there because Mariah had captured his commander, and the resulting vessel loss had been merciful retribution compared to what else might have happened. Sven sought these opportunities out, labeled it as play, even. Zarielle stood in front of Mariah, a vicious smugness planted on her face. She always wore a lab coat, which was pure fashion and no purpose. No one who exclusively worked the Help Desk ever got within six meters of any substance more experimental than the decaf coffee. What malicious and useless beings, exactly like the demons who surrounded them.
Brenda-the-Lilim approached and nodded at Zarielle.
Mariah’s bandmate let go and stepped back. “All yours.”
“Good job.” Brenda-the-Lilim then turned her attention exclusively to Mariah. Her voice takes a higher pitch, the way she might answer the phone. “You were very rude to me yesterday, but I won’t hold that against you—too much. Wouldn’t you rather bargain with straight Geases instead of wondering what kind of hook I could get on you? The offer I made yesterday is still open. Just tell me who it is you want, and I’ll bind him to you.”
Both of the other Habbalah snickered. They must love the idea that Mariah wanted someone so badly a Lilim could see it. But what did their opinion matter? They had as much context as Brenda-the-Lilim did to figure it out.
Mariah shook her head and kept her gaze fixed on the linoleum tile. They always looked dirty. Did the gremlin crew even clean here?
“Suit yourself.” The Lilim was almost gentle in how she removed Mariah’s sunglasses and tilted Mariah’s head up to catch her gaze. Yesterday, she could guess what the Lilim would see. Today she couldn’t be sure. Did Mariah even have Needs right now? All Mariah can think of is her original objective. Get one of the boxes and take it to the Paper Shredder’s room. After that point, all her current problems would become irrelevant. Worse ones would come along but not until later.
Brenda looked past her to where Sven kept his grip on her arm. “Good enough. Let her go for now.”
Sven hesitated, but at the tilt of Brenda-the-Lilim’s chin, his grip on Mariah’s arms loosened and became hands at her back shoving her towards the break room exit. “Later, then.”
Mariah walked out of the break room as quickly her lack of affect would allow her. The adrenaline from the day before was gone. Nothing felt important now. She made her way towards the stack of boxes as if on auto-pilot with only slightly better navigation. She picked up the first one within reach, and navigated her way back towards the stairwell leading to her destination.
Mariah had almost made it when the words “You owe me” hit her from behind. A Geas attempted to wrap around her, and she almost let it. Her attempts to resist were never worth much. But Essence welled up from deep within Mariah’s chest, a gift and a message from the Kyriotate who used—and helped—her. She concentrated and felt the chain finally fall away from its attempt to latch.
“No, I don’t.” Mariah mustered up little more than grim satisfaction at the refusal. There was neither the time nor the capacity for gloating. She still needed to get upstairs before Brenda-the-Lilim could retaliate or call for help.
“Essence?” Mariah asked under her breath to Kira, who was the closest thing she had to an ally in Hell—in anywhere, really.
The Kyriotate gave an affirmative hum and passed more of it to her. Good enough.
Mariah’s mood ring lit up with the puce of the Lilim’s confusion. Yes, that would work. Mariah bit her lip and poured her effort into ignoring the thoughts her Discord forced upon her. Yes, the Lilim might be just as much a victim of the Game as Mariah might have been, and her failure here would get her into deep trouble, especially once Mariah could be confirmed missing, but this wasn’t personal. Mariah had exactly one thing to accomplish in the next five to ten minutes, and it would be better for everyone—for herself, for Kira, even for this Lilim—if she weren’t pursued.
The circuit closed. The Lilim was left stood there blinking at Mariah, her intended patsy, in shock. In a more animated mood, Mariah might have tried to come up with a clever closing line, but right now she didn’t see the point. Instead, she gave the briefest of head tilts towards the Lilim and left that floor of the building, most likely for the last time.
She wouldn’t miss it.