Butterfly Jar

A small mistake on what should have been a routine possession attempt sends Raye on an impromptu deep-cover assignment. Yeah, that's what we're calling it.
Meanwhile, a Habbalite discovers the hazards of keeping lab specimens for personal use.
((Crossposted from Ao3))

Notes:

This story was originally posted on Ao3, and categorized as Gen, though with the tag ‘Toxic Yuri Undertones’ which is apt. Here it’s posted as F/F, for archive-related reasons. Thus the need I feel to set expectations.
Back when the story was originally posted, I waffled between whether to add F/F as a category or not primarily because, in this story at least, Raye, the primary PoV character, is adamantly against the idea that the toxic codependency with Mariah that ensues over the course of the story is going to be anything other than platonic. However, as my wife said when I was originally waffling, some of the events that occur later in this story are almost inherently sapphic.
Anyway, all this to say, this F/F is not so much ‘two woman-aligned celestials fall in love and end up together’ as it is ‘two woman-aligned celestials become hopelessly entwined in each other’s life in ways that will leave them both indelibly changed.’

Chapter Text

Everyone makes mistakes, and the one we just made should have gone down as a small, avoidable error.

It’s definitely not the vital kind of mistake—not the kinds people mean when they say if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not making art—which is a philosophy we hear a lot from less-sensible Wordmates when we’re helping to clean up the results of said mistakes. It’s also something we tend to tell more sensible ones when they’re helping us clean up our mistakes. It’s not even an interesting mistake—those usually mean causing mild inconveniences for innocent people who aren’t our hosts and, going by our existing habits, would likely involve them getting bans from various zoos and aquaria until we’ve had the opportunity to go back in and correct it.

But it’s also not the worst kind of mistake we could have made either. We don’t think so, anyway. We’re not dissonant, which means we haven’t harmed any of the hosts we were occupying. We definitely haven’t done anything harmful to this particular woman. Nor do we think we’re placing anyone in immediate danger or actively aiding the cause of Hell through this blunder of ours.

And yet, nonetheless, this is definitely a mistake.

Eight decades is short time by celestial standards, but it’s more than enough time to understand how possession goes on the corporeal. There’s always potential dangers and ways to avoid them. Have at least one force in a host at all times, so the corporeal plane doesn’t object too strongly to a loose Kyriotate hanging out in celestial form too long. Take the time to observe possible human hosts to become familiar with their lives and habits. Observe the differences between someone merely in a hurry (and thus likely to reject possession) and someone who genuinely needs help. Leave them somewhere safe and comfortable when we’re done. Those tend to cover most of the usual threats in the usual cases.

Our fateful (lower-case letters, but only barely) lady should have been a usual case on a usual kind of spring day. We’ve spent the past week observing her in various guises: her pet dog Scottie, one of the birds nesting in her gutter, a squirrel who eats out of her bird feeder. She’s about sixty-five years old, hard-eyed and soft-bodied. She dresses in loose flowing skirts that almost, but not quite hit the hippie vibe. She lives alone. If she works outside the house, we’ve never observed her going to a job. No spouse or lover that we’ve seen. She has one daughter (Daughter-in-law? No. They have different coloring but strikingly similar bone structures.) who lives in the area. The daughter showed up once during our observation to take our lady-of-the-week to the supermarket. Otherwise, she rarely leaves the house for longer than it takes to get the newspaper and check the mail. Her hobbies seem to including watching television, reading the Weekly World News, and smoking at least a pack of cigarettes a day. She’s pretty good at baking and can do some utilitarian sewing. We haven’t actually seen her use either craft since we’ve started our observations, but we have a sense for these things. There’s a decent base level of skill to work with. None of our surveillance critters ever had a close enough look at her ID to confirm, but we’re pretty sure her name is Barbara. Names are one of those little details that is easier figured out once we have possession of the actual body and the opportunity to go through purses and pockets.

In retrospect, we missed an important detail. The necklace she wore—a faded pink and green crystal wrapped in copper wire—should have been our hint that this would not be a usual case. She didn’t resist possession, at least not that we noticed, if she had we would have just not gotten in, like trying to turn the knob of locked door. Instead, it was like opening the door easily only to find a tornado on the other side eager to pull in anything not sufficiently nailed down.

We should have pulled out then, shut that metaphorical door. We could have found another project or at least found a way of helping her that didn’t involve body-borrowing. We don’t. Didn’t. That’s the key mistake, right there.

We don’t end up in this maybe Barbara with our forces animating her while her mind is off in the Marches, but just above her, like a bead of water on a duck’s feather. And then it’s not just the five forces allocated to Barbara or the sixth that we kept spare in case she happened to be one of those humans with an extra but also the two forces animating her miniature schnauzer and the one doing aerial surveillance in the body of a crow that get drawn out of their bodies. That’s the whole of us clumped together in once place.

Now, we’ve heard of Force Catchers before. What Hive working regularly on the corporeal hasn’t? Security-conscious (or paranoid) people on both sides of the War can carry or wear these wire-wrapped crystals to prevent those of us who borrow bodies from borrowing their particular bodies. Even the small ones that don’t hold more than two forces are effective defensive measures in that sense. They’re a fairly new invention in celestial terms—we’re told they first became commonly available (for celestial artifact standards of ‘common’) around the turn of the last century. That’s still enough time for word of them to get around, even to those of us who primarily work among unaware mortals.

(We assume our hosts are unaware mortals. Generalizing may have been another mistake.)

We’ve never actually seen one in person before, much less actually been caught in one.

First time for everything, huh.

It’s neither cold nor dark in here. Dark implies an opposition of light. Cold implies an opposition of warmth. Both sets of oppositions require sensory input to render the contrast. What we see is blank. What we feel is the absence of temperature, like an indoor room that gets neither hot nor cold, complete and total neutrality. There’s no air to feel dry or humid. There’s neither smell, nor taste, nor texture to compensate for the lack of vision. What we do get is sound and very specific sort of kinesthetic sense. It’s not quite the feeling of knowing whether a limb is bent or extended, at rest or in motion, but it’s in the same category: A physical cue based on motion and position in absence of true tactile sense.

Right now, we hear the blaring of a television and the heartbeat of the elderly lady we almost possessed. We sense the motion of a chest rising beneath us as the smoke from a cigarette gets inhaled, and then the same chest falling on the exhale.

Strictly speaking, it’s not painful in here. That requires more sensation. It’s not even physically uncomfortable, like being squeezed into a too tight crawl space would be. But we feel…uncomfortably singular sitting all in one place here in this Force Catcher. We should be more scattered, one here, another maybe a few feet away, a third outside, possibly a fourth somewhere else.

The obvious action is to try and get out. We struggle against the bounds. The crystalline structure feels like syrup on our wings, resembling rock candy more than actual rock in that sense. Not physically—see above about our absence of tactile sensation—but in the sense that this object wants to hold onto our Forces, and our say in the matter is limited even as we pour most of our Essence into the attempt. The Essence is gone. We’re still here.

We spend a few more hours contemplating this situation, our minds debating how to balance the need for discretion against the need to get out of here.

Who has force catchers? People who fear being possessed and have the resources to back that up. Which means people who are in the know about Heaven and Hell and the War most likely. And while we haven’t observed any signs that our maybe-Barbara is a deep cover Soldier for either side, that doesn’t rule out the possibility. No one would suspect her, which makes her the perfect unexpected ally for whichever side she works for.

And if she’s not a Soldier, then what?

How do ordinary unaware mortals find themselves with celestial artifacts?

It’s in this spirit we finally decide to speak up.

“Hey.”

“Demon! Evil spirit!”

If she had any Holy Water on hand, she would have probably dunked the crystal in it. It wouldn’t have had any kind of affect, except that maybe the crystal gets wet. As is, we can feel the motion of the force catcher as it’s removed from the lady’s neck and gets flung to the ground. The impact is hard enough to make a noise but not, unfortunately, hard enough to break us free the painful way. Just hard enough to convey her disgust at the whole situation.

“Look, there must be a misunderstanding. I thought you were just a regular human. If you let me go, I won’t bother you.”

“Don’t think you can trick me, demon! I know what you are!”

“I am NOT a demon!”

“You were trying to possess me! Evil spirit! You were going to take over my body and use it to do unspeakable things! I’ve seen the movie!”

Okay, yes, we were planning on taking over her body. That’s inherent to the concept of being a Kyriotate. Usually. It’s inherent to our concept of being a Kyriotate. But we were going to give it back to her, in better shape. A slight break from her pack-a-day cigarette habit would have been enough to do it, even without any other assistance.

And anyway unspeakable things? Some examples: trying to make her signature chocolate chip cookies and leaving her a plate to share with her neighbors, doing some corporeal-side paperwork, putting the laundry away, turning some of those piles of old newspaper into papier-mache and sculpting a bust to go on her mantle. Nefarious acts. Meanwhile, what else could we have done with those extra forces? A lost dog somewhere might have found its way home. A crow might have helped make a crying child smile.

If that’s what evil spirits normally did, wouldn’t that make corporeal reality that much better?

We [I] think so.

“I was here to help you! I promise you, I am not a Shedite, or any kind of demon for that matter!”

We [the lady and myself] argue back and forth for awhile before we [I] reach some conclusions. First, she’s not going to listen to any sort of reason. Second, she’s not going to accept any kind of bargain. Not dishes, not laundry, not even cleaning out the gutters (At least all the ones free of nesting birds; we have our priorities). Third, in the increasingly minuscule chance of her being an Aware human (Soldier or otherwise) that awareness is informed much more by the horror movies her grandchildren watch, than anything based in reality.

It’s about the time she’s trying to trick us into reciting the quotes from the Exorcist, that we stop talking back.

The Love Boat eventually starts playing in the background, followed up by some other program—a drama, we think. If it’s like the past week, she’s not doing anything with her hands, which most of us find rather odd. How do people sit down and watch Television without having something to do with their hands? We do speak up once to politely suggest she consider doing some crochet while she watches television. Because, come on, what evil spirit would suggest crochet?

Given time, at least one of our minds could come up with some reason. There are some very specific demons out there. Still, it wouldn’t be an intuitive conclusion.

“I’m won’t be fooled by you, evil spirit!”

No, it was quite apparent someone else had already done that.

—

We know it’s the next day when our daily Essence hits. And we get a confirmation that this lady is not Symphonically Aware at least when we throw the rest of what we’ve got into another escape attempt. Her hostility towards the ‘Evil Spirit’ caught in her necklace is such that surely she would comment if she could hear the disturbance from our escape attempt.

(That escape attempt, by the way, doesn’t work. The rock candy effect still binds us down, and wow it’s gooey in here. Figuratively speaking. Still not a lot of tactile sensation going on here. Let’s wait another nine days, and then try will all our Essence. That sounds like the best plan.)

There’s a whole production surrounding us this morning. We’re moved. The sounds of the lady’s heartbeat and breath grow more distant. Crinkling of thin paper (probably yesterday’s newspaper or an old magazine getting sacrificed, and not even for papier-mache,) sounds around us, and then every other noise becomes more muffled. Not a lot. We can still hear some inane morning news program blaring around us, but we can no longer parse out the individual words. We must have been wrapped up. There’s no other sensory differences between being around someone’s neck, and being prepared for some postal-based transportation.

We’re moved somewhere else. Outdoor noises are the ones being muffled now. Car engines, birds chirping in the springtime, leaves rustling in the wind. Then the motion stops. We hear the scrape of metal on metal, like something shut. We can’t exactly confirm this, but we bet there’s a little red arm flag thing going up on the side of the mailbox.

Do Lightning Kyrios ever do that? Just place a small object containing a piece of themself in a Self-addressed stamped envelope and drop it in the post? On one hand, it avoids disturbance. On the other hand, Lightning doesn’t generally care about generating disturbance enough to not use more efficient means of self-transport. On the other, other hand (and don’t worry, we won’t run out of hands anytime soon) there are Kyriotates of words other than Lightning (not us) who have the attunement as well, and maybe they would value a cheap, no disturbance version of cross country travel. If the time limit on said attunement even allowed them to do that. Maybe next time we talk to someone with that attunement, we’ll ask.

That would probably be a more comfortable way to travel via mail. And unlike us, they’d probably get to pick the destination.

Chapter 2: Raye introduces herselves.

Chapter Text

We are currently awaiting transit to a destination unknown courtesy of the United States Postal Service.

We have time. So let’s make a quick introduction of self (selves).

Our friends call us Raye, but that’s simply our favorite corporeal alias. Our friend Cole helped us pick it out when we fledged, and out of all the ones we’ve tried, that’s the name that’s stuck around. Our mother calls us Preerana, a short version of the name we carried as a reliever and haven’t officially changed in the near century since we’ve fledged, and most Seraphim (as well as Judges) follow her example given a choice. We play around with other names occasionally. Making up new aliases is fun, and it’s always useful to have an extra or two at hand.

We are clearly an angel, although we’re not a beautiful human figure with the shining halo and fluffy white wings (different Choir that) or a little pudgy baby lounging on a cloud (some mistaken impression of yet another Choir). We’re not even sure we qualify as ‘biblically accurate’, but if someone lined us up alongside one of our infernal counterparts (ew, Shedim) in some implausible game of Guess the Angel, the contrast in form should be obvious even to an uneducated observer.

We are one of the less human seeming angels, despite being closer to humanity than most. We are a Kyriotate, also known as a Hive or a Domination to those who are in the habit of using the Choir titles. We’re a whole miniature host of eyes and limbs and mouths and butterfly wings held together with a glowing mist. Most of those features are variations on the generic Choir traits, excepting the butterfly wings, which are the result of a conceit we had when fledging, and it’s an aesthetic decision we stand by.

There are a multitude of us contained inside the Hive, and as such it’s impossible to count out an exact number of ‘us’ that make up the whole. Do we count by eyes? Eyelashes? Butterflies? Hands? Smiles? Teeth? We have one Heart to call us home and one Word to give our service. When we’re on the corporeal and also not trapped in a Force Catcher, we’re usually a few bodies. One human a lot of the time, whether that time gets measured in mere minutes or whole days. One or two birds almost always. (We’re partial to crows but not picky most of the time.) Cats or dogs a lot of the time, due to their nearness to humans. Raccoons when manual dexterity is required. Rats on occasion, when locational quantity matters more than individual host efficacy. And anything else as we get the opportunity. We haven’t been an alligator—yet. At least not one that wasn’t safely contained within a zoo enclosure.

The natural division, to measure the amount of us by any kind of consistent, well-defined standard, would be by Forces. Nine Forces, nine of Us. Sure, it’s not an exact one-to-one correspondence, but it gives other celestials a sense of how big we are and how many we can be when we start taking hosts, which is what most people care about when discussions of quantity and Kyriotates come up. But that measure is a simplification at best. We can have hundreds more than nine perspectives, or a few less than nine, and which of us exactly holds what perspective is always in flux. There isn’t a singular part of our Hive that is just brains, or the one who notices the nuances of sound, or can provide strength or speed to a body. Nor does only one of us know how to draw or knit or operate a coffeemaker, while another can Heal or Move or Shape Flesh. No aspect of us is truly isolated from the rest, and very few aspects of ourself are truly unanimous.

Take gender, for example: The plurality of us are feminine, some are gender neutral or identify in terms not easily translatable to human experience and a couple are masculine, and which ones these are at any given moment tend to shift. We think plural and attempt to talk singular to most people. Our mother would call this endlessly mutable, and, as a Seraph, she’d be correct. Cole would wonder why we’d bother identifying with gendered terms in the first place when we’re actually an amorphous butterfly cloud but it would consider our affectation darling nonetheless.

All of this ‘us’ is apparently able to be completely contained within some rock small enough to be worn on a human-sized body as a piece of ordinary looking jewelry. In a smaller Force catcher, bits of us would be left free to act upon the world. Theoretically, we could find an accommodating bird, and set one Force to intercept the mail, or failing that, send it to find our nearby friends and help stage a rescue mission. It’s not useful to think about what we could do if we were just slightly less trapped, but we let one mind dwell on this topic anyway, just for the entertainment value.

We let another mind focus on motivation. Why are we in here? Yes, we’re in here because we didn’t notice the catcher until we were sucked in. But why this woman, clearly unaware of the war? Why such a large catcher, when a small one is already an effective defense tool and much cheaper? Why are we being mailed?

(Not a motivation question, but related and probably more important: Where are we being mailed to? We should probably set another mind to see if we can figure that one out.)

The motivation questions lead to a singular conclusion: We’re not trapped as a protective measure, not really. This is an offensive move. That woman isn’t a human with some level of knowledge protecting herself; she’s an unwitting accomplice for someone else. Someone who distributes force catchers, and then has a system set up to collect them from a wide geographic range. Someone who collects celestials known to borrow human bodies.

Celestials like us. Or if not Kyriotates, then Shedim.

Another set of minds debate quite vigorously in the background about what to actually do about this situation. This is a trap, yes, but not necessarily one crafted specifically with us [a perfectly ordinary Kyriotate of Creation] in mind, just for Celestials like us occupying a certain corporeal niche. And likely it’s not a lone trap, but one among many.

Then the minds shift and ask: Well, should we try to escape the trap before it fully closes around us? Do we stick around for a little longer in hopes of getting some more information? Who else gets caught up in these kinds of traps? Can we build up some essence to manage what comes next? How long do we have before inaction stops being an option and becomes our decision?

Continuing the escape attempts is our best chance to save ourself and our worst chance of helping any others who might be caught in this situation. Not trying is the reverse. Do we really want to meet the mastermind behind this and figure out what it, they, he, or she want from us?

When our options are as limited as they currently are, all of these questions are basically thought exercises. We’ll build up essence and make another escape attempt. That’s all we can do.

Through all these lively internal debates, the world outside our prison keeps moving along. We make out the muffled sound of oldies playing on the radio (1950s isn’t ‘old’ in absolute terms, but it’s not current to this era), and then we’re moved again and every outdoor sound gets a bit louder. We’re officially mail. Presumably a little red flag has just gone down.

Motion has no cardinality from the inside, and time itself loses most of it’s meaning. We just feel the starts and the stops and the periodic turn of a vehicle going around corners. Ambient sounds draw near, pass, and grow distant. Songs change on the radio, interspersed with periodic breaks for commercials and station IDs. Small talk: lunch recommendations, weather conditions, plans for the weekend. Machinery shuffles paper. Then, there’s near silence when everyone leaves for the night, and that reminds us that dawn will come soon. We count out our daily essence and hoard it for our next attempt to unstick ourself. Four essence regained at dawn, four days of travel time in unknown directions. Four days from our point of origin to our arrival at a destination.

We won’t exactly know where or to whom until they come and get their mail.

—

‘Where’ winds up being a generic post office in a generic small town in North America. The ambient corporeal language still sounds like English, in a similar accent to the place we were previously. The weather is generic sunny spring day with a nice breeze. The second half of April showers and May flowers. It’s warmer than it has been these past few days. (If nothing else, all the small talk is good at keeping current with the surrounding weather conditions.) Another contrast with no meaning in our current state: Inside versus outside.

Then the constant motion stops. We’re set down, and lock clicks closed in front of us.

So this is what being in a mailbox is like. Well, we’re not literally IN the mailbox, more like we’re inside something that is itself inside an envelope that is itself inside a mailbox. Thus far, what it’s like is listening to the activity of people dropping off and collecting mail while somewhere above us the second hand of a clock relentlessly ticks off the time. One mind tries to keep track of the seconds until enough stack up to become irrelevant, probably about 24 minutes give or take.

Daily Essence tells us we haven’t been in this Force Catcher a week yet, and that it’s time to try again. We can almost feel that rock-candy coating shake loose from us this time. Will we make it?

No. We’re still stuck. Try again in a few days.

It’s right after someone leaves for their lunch break that the lock on our mailbox opens. Their mailbox. They have the key; we’re just borrowing the place.

We’re taken out. The sounds of the post office grow slightly louder, and we can hear someone complaining about the price of stamps just a little bit away. Much closer in, there’s the quick catch of a breath followed by almost giddy squeal and a quick motion forward. Whoever just received their mail is happy about this package.

(It’s a safe bet to say they are much happier than we are.)

“Just before the deadline too.” A voice says above us. It’s female, young-sounding (this is not necessarily an indication of age, even when talking about mortals, but some voices do just have a young tone to them), and a little bit saccharine—sweet but artificially so, with no substance behind it.

We hear the outside sounds again (the birds, the squirrels, the rustle of that nice spring breeze), and then the creak of a car door opening and then the echo of that door slamming and world being shut out once again. The engine turns over with a noise that indicates that it might be a minor miracle that the car even started.

As the vehicle starts to move, the saccharine voice addresses us directly. “You can speak up if you have anything you want to say.” It’s almost friendly.

There’s lots of things we want to say, some of which are probably inappropriate for an official Angel of the Lord or whatnot, and most of which probably aren’t any kind of useful for our situation. Several of us would like to string together a bunch of obscenities and leave it at that. We also want to know why, ask what the fuck, maybe ask how that lady of all people managed to get her hands on a Force Catcher, what happens if someone much bigger than us gets caught, and so on.

In all this din, a very cautious mind points out that we probably shouldn’t be saying anything at all. It’s probably right. And it already knows the plurality of us are going to ignore its suggestion.

“Angel or demon or neither?” We ask once the internal debate is settled. Of all the questions we were thinking about asking, this is the one that strikes the right balance between useful information and good manners. We haven’t talked to anyone besides ourself since we determined that our friend Barbara would NOT listen to reason, and we could use something akin to a friendly external conversation right about now. It would help to distract us from the singularity we’re feeling. One of us [me] should be flying around. The rest of us should be hanging out elsewhere, not staying in here all clumped together. It’s not right for a Kyriotate to be stuck this way.

“Why, an angel, of course.” The saccharine voice provides no additional details like Choir or Word service that could help explain this situation. ‘Angel’ does surprise us; our first guess would have been a demon, but perhaps they were trying to hunt down Shedim after all. “You may call me Mariah. Tell me, do you have a name to go by?”

We debate which name to give her, though we rule out ‘Raye’ and ‘Preerana’ quickly enough. Those are the ones that are part of official records and paperwork, and once we get out of here, we do not want this ‘Mariah’ to have any way of connecting to us. (Yes, we are remaining optimistic, to think we’ll get out of here.) We consider a half-dozen other names we’ve used once or twice in our correspondence. Most get discarded, but there is one we’ve taken to using in uncertain situations—usually, but not always, involving demons. That seems like our best choice here.

(We haven’t ruled out the possibility that our friendly saccharine-voiced angel is actually a Habbalite. Those kind do have that ‘angel’ delusion. It’s just asking the question directly falls on awry of the good manners approach that the plurality of us have decided would be most useful.)

“You can call me Kira.”

“Well, Kira, I see that you are feeling confused about what’s going on. You are a Kyriotate, correct. Tell me, are you Outcast?”

That question makes a few of us blink. Elohite…of Judgment, maybe? (Habbalah can do a limited version of emotional reading too, right? We set a mind to remembering one of our pre-corporeal classes, the one specifically covering the major Bands of Demons and more obscure uses of resonance.) The method of using randomly distributed Force Catchers doesn’t map to anything Judgment is known to condone, nor does it match to the reactions she had earlier, but we can see how this kind of unorthodox method might be effective in catching an Outcast Kyriotate once they were known to be in the area. Or not even Outcasts necessarily, but ones in good standing who have earned a reputation for being difficult to pin down for routine questioning. It can’t be standard. Certain Words would certainly raise a fuss if it were. (War and Fire especially. Wind, for the possible dissonance issues. Creation too, if this approach were targeted towards us specifically on account of recently acquired Word prejudice.) We’ll call it a possible explanation, not a satisfying one.

“Yes, we’re a Kyriotate, and no we’re not Outcast.” We pause and then run through the usual Judgmental questions. “No dissonance either. No discord. Not inclined to overindulge in corporeal pleasures, though I suppose that’s a subjective position there.” It hasn’t even been two months since we’ve had to answer these questions to a Triad’s grudging satisfaction. We’ve never been the kind that’s difficult to find for a routine inquisition, at least not so difficult that they would need to get unorthodox to find us. Not this kind of unorthodox, anyway. Usually if it’s been too long, they’ll send a Triad down with our mother when we’re doing our once a year meet-up. It’s what they’ve done before, and, unlike Creation, Judgment tends to stick to one method, so long as that method continues to work.

“I think you’re lying.”

Well, she’s definitely not a Seraph. We’re starting to doubt the Elohite bit as well. (We would prefer the Habbalite guess to be untrue. Please let it be untrue. It would be welcome novelty this week to get something as we’d prefer.) What objective reason would there be to assume a lie and say that out loud? Accusing a demon of lying? Maybe that could be useful but only with solid evidence at hand and even then, only when immediately calling out the lie would improve the situation. But from one angel to another? That’s a hostile move.

“Are you?” we ask, risking a bit of a hostility ourself. “Outcast, I mean?” Wouldn’t that be a thing, to be the captive of an Outcast Elohite of Judgment? It might explain the Habbalite vibes we’re getting from her, and we wouldn’t blame her, exactly, for going Outcast from that Word. It can’t be an easy one to work for. Judges have to deal with high internal standards and lots of external hostility, deserved or otherwise. We might have gone running if we were in her position. Still, if she is Outcast, the chances this is a basic misunderstanding are—slim. Best case, she might be looking for a fellow Outcast to use as leverage to get back into Heaven. The worst case almost certainly involves Hell.

“Not at all. I still do good work for my Archangel. In fact, Kira, you are going to make some amazing contributions to Science.”

Oh. Oh fuck. Somehow, we have a feeling that the ‘Archangel’ in question is not based in Heaven. Or that we would agree with Mariah regarding her angelic nature. That is not an Elohite we are sharing a car with.

We’re on the road to Habbietown.

Chapter 3: Meanwhile, Mariah makes a decision in accordance to divine whim.

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.

Chapter 4: Raye arrives at a secondary location.

Chapter Text

If we thought to wait a few days and restock our essence for another escape attempt, we’re forced to think again before the next sunrise. We hear the disturbance of a vessel being shed and a feel sudden shift to the environment around us. While we have no sense of Light and Dark or Warmth and Chill, we do still have a sense of place disconnected from any other input. The closest corporeal analogue might be air pressure perhaps, in that some aged or injured bodies warn of incoming rain by an ache in the bones.

Just replace bones with Forces, ache with vibration, and rain with Hell.

Splashing surrounds us. A stifled shriek follows. It’s probably Mariah, never mind that her voice sounds different here from how it did back in her vessel. About the same pitch, but a little less saccharine in timbre. Our presumed Mariah yells out something rude-sounding in—we assume—Helltongue. Whatever it is sounds like the Angelic language sung backwards and accompanied by microphone feedback and chalkboard nails. Some kind of ritual greeting, perhaps?

Another person—deeper voice, slower cadence—responds in that same language. The tone seems more grudging than actively angry. The traditional response to complete the ritual?

Or perhaps Mariah dropped into Hell, fell into something wet but probably not water, yelled out some infernal string of curses, and was then rebuffed by whoever was closest to the commotion. For the noise, and disrespect, if not for any actual foul language. (Do demons even care about foul language? Maybe some do while other’s don’t, much like it is for humans. Or angels for that matter.)

Footsteps shuffle, slosh, stomp off. That’s followed by the sound of more liquid, a spray rather than a splash or a slosh. We presume that’s water Mariah is being rinsed off with, which is perhaps more of a safety precaution in a Vapulan lab than anyone on our side would have imagined. So maybe not water? But we can’t think of what else it could be, or whether that detail would even matter if we had more senses to work with and could actually see what’s going on.

(A minor problem with sensory deprivation, there. We’ll hang on to any information we can get, regardless of its relevance, just because it’s available.)

Droplets hit a metallic surface. Fabric rubs up against something. Mariah and someone else exchange more unfriendly-sounding lines in that ear-searing language. And we start moving again with that same shuffle-slosh-stomp sound. Mocking laughter sounds out behind us. Because Mariah is probably still dripping wet and going through what is probably a walk of shame.

Not to be all judgmental, but that’s NOT how we do it upstairs.

(If we seem calm, it’s simply because the minds that are preoccupied with screaming panic are being kept away from the metaphorical microphone.)

Sounds pass by us. We hear an undefinable cacophony of footsteps. Claws hit concrete like dogs walking on pavement. Undertones of what must be congealed slime stick and peel along like those are acceptable verbs to describe motion. Engines roar by, mostly a bit in the distance but once way too close to us. (Or maybe too far if a collision with a motorized vehicle could somehow improve our situation.) We hear plenty of screaming and yelling, but most of the presumed chatter on this presumed street is just…chatter, albeit in a language we don’t comprehend. There’s coughing too, which is odd for the celestial plane where breathing is optional.

(Coughing is a sign of what? Smog? Pollution? Do you really get pollution in Hell? If so, Tartarus would be the place for that.)

We stop and wait, and wooshes of wind pass by us. Then, the sounds change. Chimes ring out. We hear fewer footsteps, more chatter. Or less chatter, but louder, and moving with us. The actual motion goes faster, except when everything stops and the chimes ring out. A train? Another kind of public transit? And not just a novelty, but in actual use to get from point Terrible to point Grim? Is flight in celestial form not a given down here? Or does Hell just take longer to traverse? Things we are quickly learning not to take for granted along with a visual sense, and the ability to gain Essence: easy passage to other places. Anyway, not that it matters if we have don’t any chance for mobility, nor would we really want to go sightseeing Hell if we did. Freedom of movement right now would only be good for one thing: getting the hell out. Or perhaps helping others get out of Hell.

We think there are others with us. We can’t be alone here, right? Right?

We’ve counted seven chimes exactly when our motion changes. The chatter starts to pass us by again, vertically, and then horizontally. Then the ambient sounds shift. The difference between ‘outside’ and ‘inside’, perhaps? There’s fewer motors, but conversation and footsteps bounce off walls to produce an undifferentiated sea of noise. More chatter of the literally infernal kind occasionally breaks through, some of which prompts terse responses from the Punisher carrying us.

We’re moved upwards again with dings ringing out occasionally. The final ding opens us up to a place with more office-like sounds. Appendages (not necessarily fingers) hit keys—most likely on a computer keyboard, but we’re not ruling out electric typewriters either. We hear the sinister screech of a (maybe?) printer. We’ve never encountered a non-evil one of those the corporeal, and we don’t imagine the infernal version is any more cooperative. A coffee machine gurgles, exactly how it does on another plane. The occasional screams that ring out perhaps aren’t typical office chatter, but hearing them serves as a helpful reminder that we aren’t in a usual kind of office. More of of the conversation here does seem directed at our captor. She keeps her responses short and quiet, nothing at all like we’ve heard from her before. This isn’t her happy place.

(We’ve been here maybe five minutes and we can already relate.)

Then all the noise retreats into the background except for the sound of a door opening and slamming shut behind us and then footsteps stomping up the stairs. Our journey ends in a mostly silent room. Our captor is no longer moving, just us. All the noise aside from footsteps is distant and comes from the other side of walls.

We wonder if Mariah plans on speaking to us now that we’re in a quiet location, but she remains silent. Perhaps she’s distracted by whatever Habbalah think about while carting around real angels in Hell. We hear something unzipping and one less layer between us and muffled sounds outside. Above us and to the distance we hear claws against thin metal. Closer in, there are three taps in succession. Tap. Tap. Tap. One is us, so the other two are probably catchers as well. Three catchers, three celestials, three of us in this untenable situation, and it’s unlikely that we’ll have any time to say ‘Hi’ outside the earshot of the Habbie. We don’t speak up, and neither do the others. Shame that. Fabric rustles. Maybe she’s changing clothes if she didn’t earlier. That’s what we would do in a host after walking home in the rain and getting wet. (That and laundry, but we don’t know how Vapulans deal with laundry. We’re not sure we want to know.)

We’re moved again. It’s a mostly silent slide against fabric as we’re maybe put into a pocket. This time, two more of the same action don’t follow. Instead, it’s two brief scrapes of stone against a hard surface, and the sound of shoes against a tile floor. We leave the quiet room. But it takes maybe ten seconds of walking, before we reach Mariah’s destination.

The awful noise this time sounds less like chatter and more like a formal report being given. There’s two voices: Mariah’s and one so lacking in affect it could only belong to a Djinn. The other two force catchers clack against each other. We can’t follow the conversation, and don’t really care to try. Mariah could be giving the Djinn a plot synopsis for an opera she saw back on the corporeal. We mean, probably not—doesn’t seem like something a Vapulan would be into—but she could be. It’s less unpleasant to think of it that way, since the conversation itself doesn’t matter. We can’t do anything about it.

What matters is that when Mariah walks away, only we move with her.

Another ten seconds and a set of beeps finds us back in the quiet room, just us and the Habbalite. We’re moved again and finally set down, the sound of our crystal gently hitting a hard service. At last, Mariah deigns to speak.

“Be strong, stay quiet, and listen up.”

We’re surprised to hear English down here after the buzzing drone of Helltongue everywhere else, never mind that it’s the one language we [Mariah and I] have in common. Just because Helltongue is the common language of Hell doesn’t mean that Corporeal Languages can’t also be spoken in Hell, at least for the natives.

Another pause follows. We hear Mariah spending Essence, and realize a bit belatedly that she’s resonating us. We could resist. Possibly should, as some uptight Super-Holy angel type might tell us when this is over, assuming this ends in something other than messy soul death. But our Essence is pretty much depleted from our previous escape attempts, and nothing new will come in so long as we’re in Hell. So we let her emotion, in the flavor she chooses, happen to us.

She chooses Dread. It’s a terrible, artificial amplification of our entirely rational fear at being brought to this plane of existence. The feeling is like a bird just made aware of a hungry, prowling cat lurking in the hedges. Fight, flight, or flee, there’s no good guaranteed option. Everything in Hell is consequences and none of them will be pleasant if we choose not to follow instructions. Regular soul death is the best prospect. A slow soul death via infernal experiment is more likely, and that’s only if we’re not offered the even worse option of Falling.

We know the feeling isn’t True even if it’s real. Her application of the Habbalite resonance is like a synthetic dye. It’s meant to enhance and overwhelm the natural color of our actual emotions. That knowledge doesn’t stop all our forces from freezing in their conversations. No portion of us screams, although about four of them would like to. We turn our full attention to Mariah.

“Good. Answer the questions you are asked. Speak quietly.” Mariah says.

Angelic does not have the allowances for hiding that corporeal language does. The “understood” that comes out carries all the heft and tone of that songbird attempting negotiations with its predator.

“You introduced yourself as Kira. Is that your name?”

She speaks English, which allows for lies, but we only have celestial language on this plane of existence and must speak in Angelic. We are not Kira specifically, but we have a multitude of nicknames, of which Kira is one, and we have zero desire to share any of our better names. “You may call me Kira.” That is True.

“Are you a Kyriotate?”

“Yes.” We’ve answered this before.

“Are you currently Outcast?”

“No.” That’s another of those questions we’ve answered for her. A little bit of annoyance emerges through the Dread. Or perhaps it’s simply wearing off. Nothing is permanent, and the strongest emotions even less so.

“Are you currently Dissonant or Discordant?”

We sigh internally. Could we have a novel question already? Like: Do we prefer cats or dogs? (Cats, usually.) What’s our favorite bird? (Crow.) When was the last time we heard from our Boss? (January, 1973, via a postcard from Malta.) Who is she to care about our Dissonance or Discord, if we had any? A Judge? “I answered this on the corporeal. No, I’m not.”

“You could have been lying then. Now you can’t. It’s the only good thing about having to hear that syrupy Heaven-angel language of yours.” She pauses. “Next question, are you a Servitor of Lightning?”

That little annoyance part of us scoffs at her interview skills. We’ve watched our mother nudge information and answers out of some of Heaven’s shyest and most reluctant storytellers. Questions like this never get to the heart of the Truth. But maybe that’s not what Mariah is after with this. All of her questions so far have been about what we are, not who we are. Kyriotate or not. Dissonant or not. Lightning or Not. Technology does have that obsession about Lightning. And the bit that isn’t cowering right now wonders if Mariah’s little plan would end badly for her if we could claim to be a Sparky with any form of sincerity. Or even just Sparky adjacent, the way some of our siblings are in service to Lightning. We can’t. The majority of us think that’s probably for the best. “No.”

“Are you willing to keep quiet unless I give the signal that it’s safe to speak?”

This is not a situation where calling for help is going to do anything. “Yes.”

The mood in the catcher lightens considerably. We are Relieved. It’s not natural relief. That would come with no longer being trapped in a force catcher. Instead it’s a Relief as intense and artificial as the earlier Dread that overtook us. We’re as giddy as the first time we took flight on the Corporeal, like being trapped in Hell with an insane Habbalite (Is there any other kind?) is a Good Thing, and we should be glad we’re here and not anywhere else in the Symphony. On an intellectual level, all of us know this is wrong. We feel it anyway.

“Oh, Kira, we are going to have so much fun together!”

Mariah’s no Balseraph to convince us this is actually true. It’s clearly not. We doubt Mariah’s even thinking about ‘fun’ in a sense that takes our [my] opinions into account. Our applicable ideas of fun don’t overlap here. What does a Vapulan do for fun with the Kyriotate she’s trapped in a force catcher? Nothing the Kyriotate is going to like. But the giddiness of that artificial Relief is still bouncing its way through our forces. We have those little voices in the perpetual internal discussion saying: ‘We could make this fun.’ or ‘We could take this situation and find something good in it.’ Not many voices take the optimistic view—most of us are well aware this isn’t a True emotion—but a couple do.

“Well, maybe not so much for you.” Mariah concedes to our unspoken objection. “But you’ll do well to remember this: The project I have in mind for you will be less painful than the ones I hand over eventually go to. There might not be any pain at all. All you need to do is choose to work with me, and keep yourself from getting discovered by someone else.”

“What happens to you if someone else does discover us?” We don’t mean to sound so chipper. It just comes out that way.

Mariah stays silent. That’s not an entirely comfortable question for her. (We should keep a closer watch on our behavior while resonated. It’s easy to make mistakes like this.) Yes, things will be very bad for us if we are discovered (or she stops having ‘fun’ with us, as it were), but someone’s discovery of us won’t make her life better one bit. If drawing outside attention to our presence were merely inconvenient, there would be no need for her to ply for our cooperation. Similarly, if our current chance of escape were any more likely than near-impossible (This is our first time in Hell. Does divine intervention even reach here? It must. Maybe.), we would not be so pliable for cooperation.

(We don’t like our current situation, but we’re pretty sure we’ll like any other plausibility even less.)

“Don’t act carelessly, and you won’t have to worry about that.” Mariah says at last. There’s the sound of something being set down and fiddled with. “You’ll be in disguise, and no one needs to find out so long as you don’t do anything stupid. All you need to do is stay quiet. Are you strong enough for that at least?” More essence pings, and another round of that force-freezing Dread washes right over our Relief. No, this won’t be fun at all.

(The Dread feels worse, but also more correct. In a way, that makes the emotion easier to bear.)

We say nothing.

“Good.” Mariah sounds satisfied. “Let’s begin.”

Chapter 5: Raye speculates on celestial linguistics.

Chapter Text

Mariah hasn’t spoken of any of her plans with us, yet, so we’ve been free to speculate. Our best guesses all lie somewhere in the vague intersection of what she wants and what won’t get her caught. This probably excludes anything too explosive or anything so painful that we can’t not make noise. We hope. Being a Vapulan, that still leaves Mariah lots of options for non-explosive experimental torture. Certain kinds of weapons testing, splicing us with another kind of artifact (if we’re lucky) or being (if we’re not), picking off bits and pieces of our soul bit by bit to examine under a microscope, so on, so forth. If she spends enough time not telling us, we’re sure we could come up with more examples.

Right now, her focus seems to be on a more mundane concern.

We hear Mariah struggle with an object, not so large or heavy that anything scrapes the floor but awkward enough that she has to enter the room in stages and heavy enough that it gets set down with a respectable thud and then slid into place. Something surrounds us that dampens the ambient sounds. The near omnipresent overhead scritching of claws on metal becomes inaudible. We can barely parse the small, fiddly sounds—components snapping into place, dials turned, switches flipped—that Mariah makes while she sets up some apparatus.

“It’s a preliminary exercise to assist with communication,” Mariah explains in English. Her voice passes muffled through the sound-dampening barrier she set up, but enough of us strain to focus on her voice to parse the words out. “The quicker you learn the required material, the better everything else will go.” She pauses and then clarifies, “For the both of us.”

“How will I know when I’ve learned?” we ask.

Instead of an answer, we hear a click and some static, like a magnetic tape running through a player. What we’re going to be generous and describe as ‘sounds’ start to play through tinny speakers. Unlike every other noise, these ‘sounds’ aren’t muffled through a barrier. They’re in here with us. (Not ‘here’ as in the force catcher, ‘here’ as in under the same barrier.) They play for a short time. Then we hear a word in the Angelic language, a shiny beacon of comprehension in this fog. There’s no great meaning to it. It’s just the self-referential pronoun (I, we, or however we [individual angels] choose to refer to ourselves as individuals when speaking) disconnected from any other context. Then that dubious sound again, with a significant pause after.

The sequence then starts over with a different sound, an Angelic word without context, repeat of the initial sound, pause. And then a third.

Through all of this, Mariah doesn’t say anything else. It’s possible she’s not even in this room anymore, since the noise inside drowns out the sound of most things outside it. We ask again, louder this time.

Sharp metal points tap against a hard, plasticky surface. It’s a muted sound, but nevertheless, it’s a sign of life and occupancy. “Well, Kira, I suppose you’ll know when the Dissonance hits.”

Oh. She’s teaching us Helltongue.

—

We make zero claims of expertise here with regards to how the Celestial Languages work.

Maybe there are a few of us [angels] in Creation who specialize in linguistic concepts like neologisms or constructed languages (maybe even to the point of having actual angels Word-bound to those concepts!), and could speak fascinatingly at length about the topic. We’re not one of them. Words in general were never our specialty. And the all of Wordmates we know who do work with words treat their chosen languages as more of a medium rather than an art in its own right.

We [I] figure servitors from other Words are in a better position to study and appreciate the nuances and function of language among angels and demons both, and thus develop specialized knowledge in that field: Destiny. Lightning. Certainly Knowledge before she passed. We can think of Servitors from other Words who might undergo study for more specific reasons: Revelation, Judgment, War (but not the Sword; we can’t imagine anyone from that Word compromising so far), even those possible Neologists or Conlangers we might have in Creation.

In any case, there’s probably official vocabulary that gets applied when discussing Celestial Linguistics, maybe even a whole separate set of characters just to describe all the ‘phonetic’ nuances that exist in one or the other. Volumes upon volumes research have almost certainly been compiled describing the grammar of Angelic, the grammar of Helltongue, and how both have evolved both from the Beginning to the point of departure and beyond. Very likely there’s commentary about the cultural associations and social factors that influence the development and usage of language within certain groups. Undoubtedly, someone has talked about specific quirks of speech in the Redeemed and the Fallen that reflect on previous affiliations. Some of these volumes may even have illustrated versions with proper diagrams we can appreciate. And if so, we’re sure that copies of all these exist somewhere in Yves’ library.

But let’s be honest here: we’ve never read those books. Nor will we ever. Our usual preferred learning style is through hands-on experience. Learning languages through immersion, for example, rather than via a textbook or, in this case, an audiotape consisting of nothing but repeated phrases.

That being said, we could wish for a lot less immersion. Or a better language.

This is the basic concept of Helltongue filtered through nine forces of Kyriotate and distilled:

Take a basic sentence. For example: “I am alone here.”

Now consider that sentence as a musical recording, with multiple tracks of audio coming together to build one coherent whole. Strictly speaking, celestial language doesn’t match perfectly to corporeal music, but it’s close enough that music serves not just a standard metaphor when talking about celestial languages, but the standard metaphor.

Now, in this phrase, there’s a base track that remains mostly the same between both languages. This isn’t a surprise. Demons did not create their own language from a void after the capital ‘F’ Fall; they took the already extant celestial language as a base, stripped out the contextual notes, and added feedback. A simple, factual statement in Helltongue sounds very much like dull, flat Angelic. It puts some speaking quirks we’ve heard mostly from the new-redeemed into perspective.

It’s the backing tracks that give Angelic and Helltongue their contrasting qualities.

“I am alone here.”

The harmonies on the Angelic backing tracks have inflections to denote metaphor, sarcasm, and exaggeration. If something is not strictly true in a literal sense; figurative usage will be clearly marked. The language factors in the context of the conversation and calls out non-sequiturs and abrupt topic switches as sweetly and ruthlessly as a Malakite of Flowers. There will be different words used depending on whether ‘alone’ is meant in a physical sense or emotional sense, if it reflects a current (short-term) state or a general (long-term) situation, whether ‘alone’ is meant in the sense of a specific kind of relationship; and if so, whether that aloneness is generally out of preference or not. Failure to hit any applicable tones in context will highlight either ignorance or omission; hitting a false tone is impossible.

One could not say they were alone in Angelic unless there was at least one definition of ‘alone’ that could fill in a true statement. Even then, the language would indicate what specific definition is being used to create the truest possible statement. In cases where many definitions will apply, the most accurate one to context is always chosen by default. It takes either effort or genuine confusion to choose the less precise concept.

The backing tracks in Helltongue never add context. Their main purpose seems to be to add noise and to distort and distract from the true meaning of any given phrase. Even nominally true statements in Helltongue aren’t immune to distortion. There are certain placeholders whose sole purpose is to confuse whether a true statement is actually true or just heavily implied to be true in context, but who can really say what’s true for sure, wink, wink. The most simple fact stated in Helltongue, intended as truth, and using the minimum mandatory backing tracks still sounds like a very distorted version of the equivalent Angelic statement.

“I am alone.”

That, generally, doesn’t seem very useful for demons beyond the fact that this factual voice is not restricted solely to true statements. But its existence allows a speaker—Mariah for example—to combine multiple tracks together to say something like this to one’s immediate supervisor:

“No one else has been in this room since I returned.”

It feels wrong to understand how the celestial language can be used like that, the way it does to have to leave hosts with an unintended consequence.

—

Celestials learning languages—angels learning Helltongue in specifically—requires intention. We’re not human children, whose minds are built to learn languages, as one of our Cherub siblings told us once. And celestial languages aren’t the same as corporeal ones in that all of common terms we’re using as short hand like ‘grammar’ and ‘pronoun’ refer to pure meaning rather than an arbitrary meaning attached to a specific set of phonic (or symbolic, or gestural) combinations. The language barrier between Angelic and Helltongue isn’t so much about the construction of the languages themselves, but in the conceptual gap of how those languages get used.

(Demons do seem to get some level of natural listening fluency to Angelic. Mariah seems to understand our Angelic statements on a surface level, even though the more subtle tones seem to elude her. Do they get the same speaking ability as well? We’re not sure. We’ve never heard her speak it.)

For angels, it’s the choice to fill in that conceptual gap that causes the dissonance from learning Helltongue. It’s a choice. It has to be. The dissonance would not make sense otherwise.

Many angels in Hell, facing our current situation would have maintained a life of Holy Contemplation before knowingly taking any step towards Damnation. A Judge or a Swordy would probably spend years gritting metaphysical teeth against accepting any influence of Hell, even one delivered in the form of a mechanical voice on a very low quality sound system. We’re pretty sure a Stony could go centuries doing nothing other than existing inside a crystal like this, getting lost in the mineral structure and closing out the environment around them. Any Malakim who might have been caught (song of Possession) would surely choose their own soul death over the choice to learn the infernal language. Any unlikely Seraphim would most likely do the same. We pause here to picture our mother choosing to learn Helltongue in a situation like this…and fail.

(Of course, she’s large enough that a single catcher could not hold her, even if she knew the right Song and chose to use it on a someone carrying one.)

We’re saying, Mariah wanted to teach us, but she’s only one-half the equation here. She could have played those language learning tapes for hundreds or even thousands of hours. She could taken a more hands on approach and used her resonance as motivation and/or punishment. She could even have found a more engaging way to present the material to make the learning process less excruciating. (Unlikely and most of us probably glad for it.) Nothing she chose to do would have guaranteed a result if we—or at least the plurality of us—had not chosen to learn.

We considered, and then rejected that more holy of options. If we have nothing to do here but contemplate holily until Hell is Raised, then that’s one thing, but we don’t believe that. Yes, most of our senses are locked away. Yes, our ability to act is even more restricted. We can’t do most mundane actions much less, access any of our Songs or Attunements. Our essence is gone, and nothing has come back since…since our last day on the corporeal, however long ago that was. Still, what’s the point of Creation if we don’t believe we can make something to do out of a situation like this with the tools we have on hand?

We can hear, and we can speak. The ability to understand the sounds around us means a new way of collecting information down here. A new way of speaking means a new and dangerous way to use our words.

In theory, learning Helltongue only guarantees the one note of dissonance. So long as we don’t lie, we won’t take any more that what’s already on us. However, speaking Helltongue has its own hazards. We become exquisitely aware of the problem once we speak our first words in this language.

“You can stop playing the tapes now.” These words are entirely truthful and entirely mundane. They still feel precarious passing through our mouths.

Never mind our first words being so True we could have said them in Angelic with minimal changes, Helltongue wants to add tones of embellishment or understatement. Simply intending not to lie isn’t enough to keep our statements true; it takes full and concentrated effort.

“You’ve learned it?” Mariah sounds genuinely thrilled.

Finding the correct and truthful answer in this language feels like walking on black ice in high-heels: Do so at your own risk and try not to Fall. If we claimed we’ve learned Helltongue, there’s nuances we’re afraid will twist into lies. The language wants us to claim fluency or linguistic expertise or literacy, any of which would be false. We navigate, trying to find the statement in Helltongue that is true and demonstrative. We settle on one.

“I’ve taken the dissonance for learning.”

We undoubtedly have a note of dissonance, just one note, not enough to Fall or even send us Outcast. We gained this note of dissonance down here in Hell. Mariah’s been teaching us Helltongue (for a value of ‘teaching’ that means standing by while audio drones at us). So how else would we have acquired this note of Dissonance down here, if not from learning the language? We have no host of any kind to leave worse off, and Creationers don’t do Word dissonance by nature. It had to be the Helltongue. We believe it so much that no matter how the language tries to twist it, the statement holds together when we speak.

Speaking of dissonance, how long will that note linger? For the foreseeable future, unless Mariah decides to let us stop by an Angelic tether for a week to work it off before taking us back to Hell. (Let us have our amusing and impossible mental images where we can get them.) The note doesn’t mean much in this state. It’s just a fuzzy gray blot floating across our eyes, an insubstantial bit of tarnish amidst all the nothingness we’re unfortunately getting accustomed to.

“Do you understand me now?” She asks in her native language.

We focus on our sentence. The simple answer is ‘Yes’, but it’s a challenge for us to find the exact version of ‘yes’ in Helltongue that avoids implied falsehoods. “We don’t understand you as a person, but we understood that sentence you spoke.”

Okay, perhaps that is more truth than strictly necessary. Maybe we should have talked to Mother more about telling enough the truth, telling too much of the truth, and the fine gradations of honesty contained within those lines.

We half-expect Mariah to take offense. If so, she doesn’t back it up with Punishment.

“Your kind of angel never does.” Mariah says, continuing on in her native tongue. “At least not at the start. But that’s something you and I can work on together.”

Chapter 6: Raye gets to know her new friend.

Chapter Text

Any hopes that learning Helltongue might clarify Mariah’s intentions towards us turn out to be unfounded. We’re becoming more familiar with our Habbalite friend (captor, note mandatory sarcasm intonation), but her attentions remain either completely opaque or entirely unknown, maybe even to her.

We can’t relax, but we can’t stay perpetually braced for a blow when we have no sign of its arrival.

We keep our (metaphorical) ears tuned, and bit-by-bit we learn a little more about the one who controls our current existence.

—

We memorize Mariah’s sounds. Not just her voice, which remains consistently young-sounding without being particularly high-pitched, but her ways of existing within the soundscape that set her presence apart from any others.

When she moves, her footsteps shuffle and scuff along in hard-soled shoes. It’s a medium-light sound. Whatever her actual force count is, the substance of her celestial form is not particularly heavy when she moves, even when she’s taken towards fits of anger and stomps rather than shuffles.

(We must be shoved in a corner somewhere. We only ever hear that motion coming in from two directions.)

Her activity in the room mostly seems mundane. When she’s nearest to us, we hear a lot of metal pieces clink together and some vague electrical noises. Sometimes we hear the scratch of a too-hard pencil on paper, and the breaking of the graphite when she presses the tip too hard. One of the artists in us want to tell her to use a softer, darker lead, nothing too soft, a basic HB even. When she’s further away, we hear the click-clack of keys on a keyboard (computer, we’re pretty sure) being pressed and released.

The most expressive feature of Mariah, from an auditory perspective, are what we’re sure are sharp, metallic claws at the end of her fingertips. The claws are what give her touches on the keyboard a signature, and it’s the the rhythm and pattern of her tapping fingers on surfaces that let us build a sense of mood and body-language.

It’s one finger tapping four times in succession that becomes the signal that we can speak.

Not that we [Mariah and I] have anything worthwhile to say to the other.

—

Intellectually, even before we met Mariah, we knew that Habbalah really do consider themselves angels. It’s one of those fundamental band quirks we [angels in general] get told about when it’s time to learn about the other side. “This band is the opposite of Elohim. They can make you feel things. And oh, yeah, every last one of them is absolutely convinced they’re an angel.” Of course, when we were first taught this as a reliever, that level of delusion was completely foreign to us. Incomprehensible. We knew angels. We had grown up knowing nothing but Truth. Being mistaken for naive reasons? Sure, we understood that. Persistent delusion in the face of contradictory evidence? Not so much.

We can tell you—after hearing Mariah go on about her ‘choir’ at length—that yes, Habbalah really do believe they are angels. The leaps of logic or science or metaphysics or theology that this Mariah goes through to rationalize her claims to divinity may be the most creative we’ve heard her get. The first couple times, it was genuinely fascinating to see what false premises she’d compose to fit her conclusion.

What we were never taught in those classes is just how tedious the delusion becomes after the dozenth time hearing the latest chain of reason.

“…and see, Kira, that’s why Habbalah really are angels.”

As per usual, we’re not impressed by the lecture. This is not the first time she’s given us this particular set of arguments, nor do we think it will be the last.

After we remain silent too long, she speaks again. “You still don’t believe me, do you?”

“No,” we say because indulging our captor’s ego does not merit taking dissonance, not even when refusing to indulge means a quick and nasty spike of regret. It doesn’t always. Just often enough that we still brace for it regardless.

We’re lucky this time. No strong emotions come in. Instead, Mariah huffs and makes a quick four-nail tap on the table. Her attention turns back to her work. Or hobby. It’s difficult to say with Vapulans. They’re a bit like Creation that way.

It’s an uncomfortable perspective. We shove it back to a mind that won’t think too hard about it.

—

If Mariah has friends, they don’t visit her in this room where she spends most of her time. This doesn’t necessarily mean she doesn’t have any friends (though we wonder), simply that if she does meet up with them, she doesn’t bring them back to this particular room for some personal time.

(This makes sense. Would we want a prisoner from the other side listening in on our personal time with Cole? Definitely not. But then, that’s a single, minor reason among many why we would never catch someone and keep them in a Force Catcher in the first place.)

Mariah does leave occasionally. For a few minutes, for what seems to be work-related reasons. Either she’ll leave with something that hinders her movement out, or returns with something that’s makes coming back in difficult. Are they heavy, awkward burdens, or is Mariah just a little light on celestial forces? We could believe either.

Less often, she’ll leave for hours of the time, and the atmosphere of the room changes. The omnipresent distant scratches will draw nearer. Once we heard something metal above us pop out and clatter on the floor. A ventilation grate? We try to picture it: Ventilation ducts in the walls and ceiling. The scratching sounds coming from the demonic equivalents to the youngest relievers.

“She’s not actually gone yet,” something whispers. “Put it back!”

“Why? What’s that one going to do to us?”

“Stomp on your wings and put you in a box to serve as a Spirit Battery? She’s done that before.”

“She’ll have to catch us first!”

“Put it back!”

The voices continue to argue up until the point where the door beeps again. By the time Mariah comes back in, the baby demons have scrittered back through the ventilation ducts, though the grate still remains out of place. We hear Mariah sigh.

“What were those?” We ask.

“Demonlings. Rotten creatures, always getting where they’re not supposed to go.”

—

“Kira, we’re going to play a game!”

Mariah always sounds emotional when she gets back from her longer trips, but rarely the same emotion twice in a row. Happy, or sad, or a little dreamy, angry, embarrassed—something that makes us wonder if these are her own emotions brought about by a rich social and intellectual life taking place entirely outside the confines of this room, or if there’s something else going on.

This time, her emotion of the minute is excitement.

We don’t bother asking if we’re going to like the game. We already know the answer.

“Are you going to tell us what it is?”

“Oh, I’m not going to tell you. I’m going to show you.”

Usually, we don’t bother to resist most of Mariah’s Habbie whims. When the rest of our existence is the blank of nothingness and sensory deprivation, even an artificial emotion is welcome stimulation. It’s something to feel other than the monotonous dull terror that characterizes our every day. More than that, it’s an expression of time passing in a situation where that sense has faded away alongside our essence regeneration. Unpleasant as it is, Habbalite resonance has a flavor, an intensity, and, most relevantly, a duration.

Her resonance’s duration is the only time we can sense things like minutes (harsh, intense, sharp), hours (horrible in a moderate, non-distinctive way), or days (dull, lingering, elusive) via even a proxy.

(Maybe we could convince her to get an analog clock in here, with a ticking second hand and some kind of chime for the hour. Or maybe that would be too depressing, to hear all those numbers pile up.)

When a deep sadness hits us, we let it wash over, indulge in it like self-pity even. How can this be our life is this right now? Does anyone even care that we’re gone? Who is the unluckiest little Hive in all the Symphony? Is it us?

(If we were rational, we would think of those who were handed over. By definition, we are not rational right now.)

And in quick succession, before we can really settle into the sadness, we’re hysterical. An angel, in Hell, with no way out. Captured by a demon who thinks she’s an angel. Who we’re probably celestially tougher than. Dark humor would love this.

(They probably would.)

And then, deep, deep anger. Intense, and more honest than we’d ever choose to show on our own. An emotion we’ve swallowed these past…however long comes back up. We can hear the essence spent through all this: the capacity of a new-fledged angel and more on top of that. This is Mariah showing off her willingness hurt us even if it takes the currency of her soul and reliquaries besides to do that. There’s accepting resonance as part of our existence as this Habbie’s prisoner, or even that whole situation when we first came down, where we could identify the practical purpose of all those emotions in succession. There’s no rationale here. This is just suffering for suffering’s sake.

And, no. No. This is too much. We draw a boundary. One emotion at a time. Let’s see what the will of a Kyriotate can do against this Punisher, even without any essence to back it up.

When the next emotion threatens, we don’t even bother to check to see what emotion it could be. We gather up the will to bounce it right the fuck off where it belongs.

“Kira, why would you do that?” Mariah’s voice turns away from that near hyperactive excitement and takes the tone of almost innocent confusion. Like we were her lover who suddenly slapped her during a routine argument. (We’re not. We would not.)

We almost (almost) feel bad for bouncing that emotion, whatever it was.

“What were you trying to throw at me?” We ask, the sharpness of that fury dulling down into a more natural anger.

“Nothing that would have—” Mariah stops suddenly. We hear the beeps of the door code being entered, and we, even on the tail end of our rage, quiet down. On this, and this alone, can we [Mariah and I] find accordance. Our [my] primary attention turns from Mariah’s state and activities to the incoming problem.

(This is Hell. Everything is universally a problem.)

Someone slithers into the room. (Balseraph, probably, or a certain kind of snake-y Djinn if not) Whatever it is, Mariah takes to her feet quickly.

“This is too much disturbance.” The sentence is hissed so assertively, we can practically hear the forked tongue in it. “Some of us are trying to work on important science here.” There’s a pause. “You’re not authorized to use reliquaries on premises, are you?”

“No, sir.”

“How about you hand it over, and I won’t tell your supervisor.”

We can’t actually feel the resonance building behind those statements, but seven out of an arbitrary nine of us would bet actual currency that Mariah is being resonated by a Balseraph right now.

“Yes, sir.”

“Perhaps you’re running out of useful things to do down here. I’ll see about putting in a request to Tizzy about that.” The presumed Balseraph slithers away, the door shutting behind him.

We both let out sighs. Her literally and audibly, us almost so.

A few minutes later, Mariah exclaims: “Bless it! (A profanity down here in Hell, and one that, like all Helltongue curses, comes with mandatory truth marking.)”

“Do you really need authorization to have reliquaries on hand, or was that a Balseraph?”

“Balseraph,” Mariah confirms. “I hate when they do that. All that work just to get a decent source of essence, and then someone with seniority confiscates it. One day, I’ll show him. I’ll show them all. They’ll learn better than to mess with an angel.” Her nails hit something plastic around us. Ten fingers, a single hard clack.

She’s one to talk about messing with angels.

—

Just when we start to think we’re getting the sense of rhythm of this environment, the door beeps open and an entirely new person moves in. The noise is all wrong to describe it a walk of any kind. It sounds like a damp mop hitting the floor, a clack of claws, and then another damp mop thumping down on the tile and coming to a stop.

Mariah shuffles to her feet.

We stay silent. The only nice thing about being in a force catcher: no means to make involuntary noises.

The damp mop speaks. The voice is djinnish, lacking affect, and it’s very likely the same one we heard some time ago when Mariah handed over our fellow prisoners and kept us hidden away in her pocket. We didn’t understand the conversation then. We can follow this one now. “Fix these. New chips, new serial numbers. Destroy the old ones. Use the paper shredder.”

Objects clatter in a box as they’re shoved towards Mariah.

“Got it.” Mariah sounds almost as enthusiastic as the Djinn. A close working relationship with a dear mentor, this is not.

“After that, you have another quota due in three months. No Shedim. I received complaints.” The Djinn manages to say that last bit as though it had been both mortally inconvenienced by and entirely unconcerned with said complaints.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The damp mop that is a Djinn, that is herself not actually a damp mop but rather a variation on a creature that hops about wetly, turns about and leaves.

Part of us searches through our reference of “things we have been” to try and match that sound to anything familiar. Nothing immediate resonates. Another part pays attention to the box (larger, kind of flat) hitting the worktable. Yet another part pays attention to the words Mariah speaks under her breath, quiet enough that we don’t think she intends us to hear, loudly enough that we can’t be sure.

“Not my fault that angel was weak.”

The chair nearest us slides against the hard floor, and Mariah takes her seat again. She gives those taps that serve as our signal that she’s alone again. “That was my supervisor with more work and a new assignment.”

“Are you heading back to the corporeal?” We’re getting accustomed to asking questions in Helltongue. After curses, they’re the safest utterances to say, at least from a dissonance perspective.

“After this next repair job, yeah.” Mariah does not sound thrilled.

“And we’ll just stay here?” Interrogative case. It’s an honest, if slightly leading, question.

Our most focused thoughts run along a couple of tracks.

First, we consider the thought that she could take us back to the corporeal. This would be our best and most likely chance of escape. The problem (from Mariah’s point of view) is that going up to the corporeal means that her prisoner (us) will start regaining essence. Regaining essence means eventually being able to put that essence into an escape attempt while we’re in a location less inhospitable to angels than Tartarus. (Where might a more inhospitable location be? Abaddon? Sheol?)

Most of us like that concept. The problem (from our point of view) is finding a way of convincing Mariah that we would NOT attempt to escape given time on the Corporeal and the opportunity for essence regeneration.

This of course ties into a side debate we’ve had since the whole concept of Helltongue started making sense. (Mind where you step) When would a lie be worth the accompanying dissonance? Definitely not to indulge the delusion of our Habbie ‘friend’, but one lie to escape? That’s different. One extra note of dissonance to get out of Hell, get out of the Force Catcher, run to a friendly Tether and explain the whole situation? It seems easy. We could work off the dissonance, and no one reasonable would blame us for it.

Of course, that whole scenario assumes Mariah believes that one lie and would choose to take a major risk based on the one statement.

But, if she were willing to risk letting us go free based only on a single lie—

And thought track one converges onto thought track two. Which is: Mariah has a quota, and for a very risky kind of target. Based on any number of her rants, she doesn’t like being on the corporeal, which is full of stupid heaven-born angels who don’t understand the value of Science and the need for test subjects of all kinds. She’s waited a long time for the opportunity to keep one of these specimens for herself. If she’s willing to risk letting us go free based on a simple promise of good behavior, then it’s even more likely she’d just bring us to her boss to meet quota that much sooner.

So really, any scam convincing enough to get Mariah to bring us along to the corporeal is highly likely to end with us either as a pile of corrosive goop or a pile of Discord. Are we desperate to get out? Generally, yes. Are we so desperate as to risk not getting out as a Kyriotate? We want to say ‘never’.

“You’ll stay safe and sound right here. Don’t worry, you should be disguised well enough, so long as you remember to be quiet. I’ll be back once I get quota. Don’t miss me too much.”

There’s a click from the far side of the room, like a light switch turning off. Except for the scratching of the grates and the whirr of a computer, everything goes silent.

A blessed (heavenly) sense of being left alone for a while.

Or so we think.

Chapter 7: Raye has boredom issues.

Chapter Text

No point in getting florid here, if we had one word to sum up life in the catcher while Mariah is gone, it would be: boring.

Boredom is one of those concepts we previously looked down upon, similar to how we feel about books without images and the kind of Judges who jump to prejudge without bothering to understand context. Unlike the first, which we understand as a completely personal quirk, or the second, which is simply an annoyance of being a Creationer still working directly for our Boss, we thought boredom was a simple enough thing for everybody to avoid. We always had something to do, and when we didn’t, we could almost always make something to do. And in the rare cases we couldn’t even manage that, we could bird-hop somewhere else until we found someone in need of a bit of help. And there’s always someone when we looked hard enough.

Now we’re just…here. All our forces are clustered together when they’d rather be spread over a city. A neighborhood. A house at least. Our forces—our minds, it’s not a one to one correspondence—don’t exactly bicker like too many family members trapped in a too small car on an interminable roadtrip, but we’re all getting weary of the lack of anything not ‘us’ to experience and perceive. We still have multiple viewpoints, but realistically our view right now only faces two directions: inward and outward.

When Mariah’s here, it’s easier to focus our attention outward. We are a being occupying a space, and that Habbie also occupies the same relative space. The more of us who focus on her, the fewer of us there are (proportionally, if not strictly by number of minds) to turn our attention inward. Now that she’s gone, more of us trend towards introspection, how we got here, what can we do, what we should even focus on if all we can do now is think.

Eventually, our foremost minds consider the concept of Limbo, which we’ve never thought about before on any meaningful level. Limbo is a sort of nothingness place where Outcasts and Heartless Renegades go in lieu of Trauma when they lose their vessel. They stay there until they can gather up enough essence to build themselves a new body. There’s some fancy metaphysical details about essence stockpiles, Discord and the like, but, really, for a reliever already heart-set on becoming a Kyriotate, only three bits of the lecture actually stuck: One, this is the most mundane exception to the rule that only Superiors can make vessels; two, people outside Limbo can send essence and messages and help those who are trapped inside get out; and three, by virtue of our intended (usually vessel-free) Choir, we would never go there, ever, even if by some (then unimaginable) circumstance we ever became Outcast. Only the tiniest portion of our thoughts ever actually considered what Limbo might be like, what would it be to exist in pure nothingness. Why would it be relevant, except maybe as a not-so-fun thought experiment?

Except, we are here in an albeit impure nothingness, and we’re finding the concept of Limbo to be overwhelmingly relevant to our current situation.

Granted, the experience of being captive in Hell courtesy of a force catcher will never be exactly the same as a vessel-bound celestial trapped in Limbo, but none of us think it’s a bad analogy either. Both places are very quiet with not much to do and way too much time to contemplate past mistakes. (We should have noticed. We should have turned back when we could.) We are admittedly a little jealous of Limbo residents who get daily essence and regular escape opportunities, even if that blankness is even more isolating what we face here.

Our minds get into a lively disagreement of whether Limbo or this is preferable. On one hand, Limbo is safer. No one can go into Limbo and drag you [hypothetical Limbo-eligible celestial] out for experimentation and force dismemberment. On the other hand, this environment is at least a bit more varied. We have more opportunity for outward observation, which makes Tartarus more interesting, even if it’s just this tiny corner of it. So what if the wrong kind of notice at the wrong time will make our Hellside visit more painful? We’re at least in a place. That has to be an improvement, right?

Okay, no, we’re not convinced, even as we cling to every outward observation we can make.

—

Even with Mariah gone, this room still has a narrative. Noises still leak into here, even when the room is empty: the omnipresent vent scratches, announcements over a PA system, various mechanical noises, distant screams. It’s a perfect aural sketch of Tartarus. And, as it turns out, this room that Mariah uses as her workspace is empty a lot less often than we might have previously guessed.

With Mariah here, we might have mistaken this room for a private space. With Mariah gone, we observe an entirely different environment, in which privacy is not a major feature.

In general, privacy is not a common commodity on either side of the War. However, we’re discovering how the lack of privacy in Hell is almost—but not entirely—unlike that found in Heaven.

Heaven’s lack of privacy is—personal is probably the best approximation of how we would describe it. Something a human (or a demon) might consider part of their inner-self—their emotions, deeds, or relationships, example—are visible to specific choirs. To an Elohite, how we feel and how we might react to a given action are as much a part of our celestial appearance as mist and golden orange butterflies. In the way that some birds can see ultraviolet colors that humans can’t, Elohim can see emotional states. Having been raised in Heaven, we’re not even sure we would classify it as a lack of privacy. It’s just normal. Mercurians, Malakim, and Seraphim are the same way, just about different aspects.

On the other hand, Heaven has plenty of private spaces. Nosy Judges and wandering Windies aside, private areas tend to stay reasonably private. People tend to respect the desire to be left alone or to have a personal conversation in a closed group. We have a workshop in Heaven hidden in Halls of Creation where we store our Heart and our celestial-side arts and crafts projects, and we prefer it remain undisturbed while we’re downstairs. Our Archangel’s cathedral accommodates our desire for privacy, and only someone who loves us and knows us well will find that place without our guidance.

Hell does not work that way. It’s lack of privacy mostly directs outward towards the environment. The room we’re stored in (and we don’t know if we should call it a workshop, office, lab or something else) is not at all private. The door does require some kind of beeping code to open, but the code itself isn’t uncommon knowledge. And that’s not even counting the demonlings who have other ways in.

Those are the first to show up when it’s clear Mariah won’t be coming back for a while. No one actually gives the unfledged imps and gremlins the door code. Instead, they come from above via the ventilation system, and skitter through the room at various heights. They’re easily-identified and inconsequential little critters if annoying as all get out. We hear, rather than see, the mess they make.

Then it’s the full-fledged demons who make their appearances. We keep our focus turned outward by trying to identify each Band by sound and movement.

Balseraphs, Djinn, and Shedim are the easiest to pick out. Balseraphs slither, and there’s at least one that makes a small rattle noises when it moves or gestures. Djinn make the widest range of movement noises—scratching claws and footsteps too heavy for any demonling, the skittering of crab-like legs, the damp mop thump—but there’s a consistent sullenness to how those motions get expressed. The appendages, of whatever form, never quite make it all the way off the ground. Shedim make sticky wet noises, which makes sense as they’re all piles of goop and slime that slosh about and peel off the floor. We swear we can hear their stench. Possibly they leave actual slime trails that Mariah’s going to have to mop up when she gets back.

Impudites, Habbalah, and Lilim are more challenging to tell apart, as their celestial forms are all humanoid. Of these, Impudites are slightly more distinct on account of the wings. When we listen closely, they beat against the air like the skin of a drum. Habbalah and Lilim are virtually identical. The sound of metal clinking can be a Lilim’s Geases or a Habbie’s body modifications. (Fingernails aside, Mariah doesn’t have any independently noisy body modifications, but at least one Habbie here does.) We have to work backwards from overheard conversations to identify the band. Is it bargaining or discussion of Needs? Lilim. Discussion of strength, weakness and punishment? Habbalite.

If there’s any actual difference in motion: Habbalah generally move more crisply, feet always hitting the ground as deliberate action. (Mariah’s shuffle seems to be an outlier here: a Djinn’s shuffle produced by a humanoid form.) Lilim steps are more likely to be accompanied by the click-clack of high heels. But that’s more speculation than positive identification. Lilim can wear more practical footwear and have crisp steps, and at least one Habbie here walks around in heeled shoes of some kind.

We haven’t heard anything we can positively identify as a Calabite yet. This doesn’t surprise us. Even in Heaven, Vapula’s disregard for Calabim is well-known. There are no Calabim of Technology, and we don’t expect to hear any from other Words this deep into Tartarus. What’s a little more surprising is the lack of damned human souls. Some of the conversations, mostly involving at least one Impudite, mention human souls ‘stored’ on some of the less-secured floors. So, it’s likely the human souls are just never allowed in this area.

Regardless of Band or nature, the activities in the room fall into a few categories. Whispered conversations, the sounds of drawers and cabinets opening and closing, the shuffling of papers. Fingers on a keyboard. If Mariah has anything in Hell she can successfully hide away while she’s gone, we’re not aware of it.

(Given how narrow our awareness is, we’re not ruling it out.)

This includes us.

—

We’re amused the first time someone picks us up—or tries to, anyway—and then jumps back as though shocked. Honest Helltongue obscenities follow. For a split-second, it takes effort to not laugh out loud. And then the wary, terrified parts of us (most of us) perk up. With Mariah here, discovery felt like a distant, mutual threat. Alone, we feel a metaphorical pressure weighing down on us. Mariah said she disguised us. We’re left wondering: How effective is this alleged disguise? Will the other demons just walk on by?

It seems effective enough, though the examinations get closer than we’d prefer.

We seem to be stored in a device of some kind. It’s approximately the size of a breadbox, which in Tartarus is not a device that stores baked goods, but nonetheless has a shape and dimension similar to the corporeal object of the same name. Within the device, there’s no visible sign of us [the force catcher we’re stored in], based on the list of notable components we here getting called out. There’s apparently a speaker, a microphone, and some kind of magnetic tape deck. An electrical field is set to shock anyone who touches it for too long. Hence all the jumping back.

Most demons who bother voicing their conclusion for us to hear assume we’re a combination battery and recording device for Mariah’s research notes. Battery would explain any possible essence picked up by the Impudites and their glasses, while the recording device serves as a plausible explanation for the safeguard set around us. Of course Mariah would account for the lack of Privacy here.

Still, every time someone approaches us, we brace for the incoming discovery. And every time they walk away, we’re a little less certain how we’re going to stay undiscovered until Mariah comes back.

—

When we are not terrified, we are bored. And we are getting a little bored of being terrified of the exact same set of possibilities day after interminable day. A new kind of fear might be a novelty.

We hear a chorus of screams carry through the vents. It might be from many people screaming in unison or a single multi-part voice. Whatever the source, it’s not a happy scream.

No, no part of our hive is stupid enough to remedy the boredom. Yet.

—

We’ve stopped paying attention to the four beeps and the door unlocking. Too many people come through to make note of individuals any more, so it’s easier to just stay completely quiet all the time.

The medium-light shuffle of human footsteps, however, cause us to perk up. We know the sound and shape Mariah’s movements. No one quite shuffles on two feet the way that she does.

It’s her.

We stay silent until we hear the signal.

She sighs, softly enough we wonder if she knows we can hear it. A box is set down next to us, hard components clinking against each other. Finally, the signal tap hits against the case where we’re kept. Making noise is now deemed an acceptable risk. (Not safe, never safe, this is Hell)

“I’m back, Kira.”

To say “Welcome back” would be—possibly dissonant. To say we missed her with any connotation of affection would be definitely dissonant. We can’t say we’re happy to see her. Mariah back means minds full of emotions that are not ours and speaking around the ego of a young demon who is convinced to the very core of her Heart that she’s truly an angel, and to do it without saying anything that could even be remotely construed as a lie.

And Mariah back means that a number of other Kyriotates have been captured in force catchers and then presumably delivered to that Damp Mop Djinn, unless Mariah is stupid enough to try and keep two of us. Nothing good will happen to those others.

But Mariah back means we can finally engage with something outside of our minds, and not just listen and guess at what’s in the environment around us.

“You’re back.” We say as her echo.

“Did you miss me?” The voice goes saccharine like it did the first time we met. It carries the silent threat like the wrong answer will flood us with emotions.

About two-thirds of us don’t, for multiple reasons. The third of us who do misses the relative freedom of action we have when Mariah’s here more than it does the little demon herself. The most accurate description is that we’re divided…but do we really want to see how a Vapulan would interpret that statement? Possibly, it would involve literal dissection. Or is it vivisection? In either case, it’s not a distinction we care about, though we imagine Mariah might have opinions. “It’s complicated.”

No dissonance, so at least that’s a true enough statement.

The room falls into an uncomfortable silence as the Habbalite outside the box decides whether to resonate us or not.

She chooses not, this time. “Complicated.” It’s her turn to echo us. “Is it because you were bored while I was gone?”

We make a startled squeak.

“Technology Habbalite,” she explains, as though she expects us to catch on to the deeper meaning. We quickly review what we’ve learned about Vapulans, both as abstract enemies back in class, and as real live examples in this immersive environment. Technology…right. Their servitors get artifacts. Habbies get—what is it?—mood rings that show them the current emotion of whoever’s closest to them.

Mariah can see more of us than we thought. We hand that bit off thought to another background portion of us to consider.

Her knuckle hits our case again, and we can hear a bit of metal hitting against the plastic. It reads as a contemplative gesture. “Can you access the other components?”

“No, I’m not one of Lightning’s. Don’t have the attunement either.”And if we did, would it make a difference? Probably not. If we could leave here and possess literally anything else, we’d be gone.

Fingernails click against the plastic, a drawn out sort of contemplation this time. “Too bad. It might make you less bored.”

“Why does it matter if we’re bored?” we ask. If our boredom matters, shouldn’t she have thought of this before trying to keep us [any Kyriotate, really] as a pet? But then we think of the understimulated cats and dogs we encounter all the time; humans don’t necessarily consider mental stimulation or enrichment as part of animal care. We can’t imagine Mariah thought about that closely either when she made the choice to keep us.

Are we an understimulated pet, just a lab rat that our Habbie happened to take a shine to? Until she decides to experiment on us, maybe.

“Boredom is a useless emotion. Everything else has some kind of purpose at least. Fear means you won’t do anything stupid. Anything else that’s strong enough, I can amplify it and test you for weakness. With boredom, you might take stupid risks just to make it go away.”

We ponder that and conclude that she’s not as wrong as we’d like her to be. How long could she stay gone before anything is better than waiting. “You’re a Habbalite; you could just make our boredom go away with resonance.”

Silence fills the office. We brace for whatever she wants to throw at us. We probably won’t resist.

“Resonance is overrated” Mariah says at last. We wonder what’s hidden in that statement. Fingers slide over the case in a caress, a slide of something soft over hard plastic. “And it won’t help while I’m away.”

Maybe that’s it. Mariah needs a form of control that will stick, even when we’re unsupervised. A resonance that lasts days at the most doesn’t help when she’s gone for possibly months at a time.

“Do you want to know, Kira, what exactly you’re a part of? Should I tell you anyway, just to keep you entertained for a little bit and hopefully explain why trying to escape would be a bad idea?”

“Sure,” we say, perfect truth and no unintended details given. Yes, evil genius, explain how the big scary trap works. That won’t go badly for you at all.

Chapter 8: Back when Mariah worked through the functional specs.

Chapter Text

Mariah had set up the cage long before she found the specimen to fill it.

It started with the divine whim, the pure certainty that she needed a Kyriotate of her own. The voice called to her loud and clear.

Mariah had just came back from her fourth trip to the Corporeal. It had been her second after Tizzy’s rudimentary training, and it had been a successful trip, enough that Mariah still felt a little high from the competency rush. She was over quota—two filled crystals in her hand, instead of one—for the second quota in a row. Even better, one of her new specimens wasn’t even Outcast—the first such Domination she’d ever held in her hand and more useful for having that trait.

Another test passed. She practically swaggered into her supervisor’s office, and waited for Tizzy to look up from her latest crossword puzzle.

“You’re back.”

“Yes, ma’am. Two specimens this time, and one not Outcast.” Mariah set the crystals down at the edge of Tizzy’s desk. The surface was almost pathologically neat, if covered with stack after stack of papers and books, none of which Mariah was allowed to place her catchers on. Tizzy kept only one small corner of her desk empty for Mariah’s work, and didn’t that just sum up the quality of her supervisor’s attention?

Tizzy blinked two bulging black eyes at her; her neck moved forward and rotated, as though evaluating Mariah from multiple angles. It felt like being at the business end of an electron microscope, and she couldn’t tell if that meant she had passed or failed her latest test.

Tizzy’s beak clicked a few times. “Next time, you’ll have a higher quota.”

Mariah counted that as a pass and a fail. A pass because she had performed a job above expectations, never mind the rumors about her already circulating amongst the other Horrors in this building. A fail because her spectacular performance had not brought her any closer to the better assignment God told her was her due.

No, not a failure, Mariah corrected herself, merely a lesson and a continuation of the current test.

She walked back to her office—more of a half-converted supply closet, really—and tapped her nails on the Formica table while she pondered. Mariah liked the sound of her metal claws on the table. The staccato rhythm helped her think. That wasn’t a primary consideration when she made that most recent modification to her celestial form, but it did serve as an added benefit.

The problem, her divine whim told her, had been the non-Outcast. Pulling in one of those and getting away clean as opposed to taking the low-risk path and sticking with Outcasts had changed Tizzy’s expectations of her. The rest was just that Djinn being…herself.

But what else could Mariah have done? Kept it?

She tilted her head—almost an echo of Tizzy there—and pondered the logistics of keeping that particular specimen for herself. No, it wouldn’t have worked, not that time, not without advance preparation. The filled catcher would have been noticed eventually and commented upon, even if the annoying heaven-angel had agreed to stay quiet. There was no guarantee of that last bit.

The idea did stick with her though. The more she thought about keeping a heaven-angel for herself, the more convinced she was that this was what God willed of her.

Still, it would take time—years—to prepare.

The actual specimen acquisition would be easy. Her Catchers were tracked loosely and looked enough like ordinary quartz crystals on chains to avoid the kind of close scrutiny that would reveal it as Technological to the unaware. The complication there came from finding the right kind of specimen—one who was neither Outcast and thus a Fall risk nor heavily entwined in their community and thus immediately noticeable to other heaven-angels in its absence. If it could also show enough civility to make cooperation a plausible option, that would be even better.

It could take time—years, most likely—to find such a specimen.

Mariah had faith in her divinity and would not worry about the capture until it was time. God would tell her when she had found the right one to keep.

But Mariah couldn’t keep one for herself until she had a place to hold it safely. Safe from from Tizzy’s inconvenient eyes, safe from her nosy coworkers, and most of all, safe from the specimen’s escape attempts.

She unrolled some paper and set to work laying out the functional requirements, and sketching out the solution.

The immediate need was a place to hold the specimen. The easiest solution, assuming a cooperative subject, would be to simply hide the catcher on her celestial form and disguise it as another body modification in the same line as her metal nails and the diodes along her eyebrows. Only her Choirmates ever paid attention to those, and them mostly as a personal assessment of holiness and aesthetic sensibility. Assuming a cooperative subject and a good enough disguise, none of her coworkers would look twice.

Upon consideration, the costs outweighed the features. First, it would hurt. Body enhancements always did. The pain of the decorations proved and displayed one’s strength, which is why her whole Choir did them, the aesthetics aside. The claws still felt new and sore on her fingertips. Mariah wasn’t ready yet to make another one.

Second, and more practically, the specimen couldn’t be on her all the time, not when Mariah had to make regular trips up to the corporeal to reach her quotas. If her kept specimen traveled with her, and never left her side, it would eventually start regenerating Essence and escape. No, the specimen would need somewhere to hold it while it remained in Hell.

Mariah set aside that idea as a last resort.

The better choice would be an external container. Of course, that carried its own set of challenges, the details of which Mariah pondered while she clicked her nails. Mostly she focused on the repair of artifacts, not their construction. Certainly, she’d never made such a complicated artifact before, mostly just replications of Tizzy’s Force Catcher design. It couldn’t be too difficult though.

Take it one step at a time. Solve one problem at a time. What did she need?

Mariah needed to keep this project secret from her supervisor. Tizzy would experiment-slash-kill-slash-dispose of her—or worse, attune to her again—if she found Mariah keeping something for herself. That is, if Tizzy decided to care. No, Tizzy always cared about the inconvenient things. That Djinn wasn’t one to let apathy be a perk of working for her.

She needed to keep any equipment away from her coworkers. They weren’t so dangerous as Tizzy, but any one of them would simply attempt to salvage her equipment if they saw she held something too obviously useful. The Genius Archangel was not an Archangel of Theft, but Mariah couldn’t remember the last time she returned to her office and hadn’t find a good amount of her personal equipment missing or her papers disturbed. It hadn’t happened.

The end failure states for both cases were different, but the problems of Tizzy and of her coworkers were practically identical after Mariah broke them down to their core components. The cage couldn’t look like a cage. It had to look like equipment, but not exciting equipment. A generic piece of electronics, a hard plastic shell housing a speaker, microphone, and tape deck. Any number of scientists recorded their notes and transcribed the important bits later; no one would look twice at Mariah’s having such a device. Anyone looking for research notes or blackmail material would focus on the media, not the machine.

Overall, the device she sketched out looked useful enough to keep without looking special enough to take, which would made it a good disguise, at least from afar. Still, someone would inevitably try to investigate up close, and more than likely someone would still try to take it.

Binding the artifact to her specifically would be a start. An observer might find it a little odd for such a mundane seeming device, but it would be easy enough to explain. The supply room raids were well known. Mariah couldn’t keep useful items unless they were particularly heavy (like the computer) or useful only to her.

Her design as is was solid, but she needed more assurance. She set electrodes along the outside of the case, and hooked those up to a security system that would keep anyone ‘not her’ from touching her case for too long. Those measures would make her device a little more suspicious, but not outside the range of reasonable security features Mariah had seen on other people’s projects.

Of course Mariah went on salvage operations of her own, but only when the Voice of God told her to do so.

The other distinct problem was keeping the specimen locked-in and undetected for an indefinite period of time. Part of the solution would depend on Mariah’s ability to imprint on her hypothetical specimen that any escape attempts would be a bad idea and alerting anyone else to its presence would be an even worse one. Resonance would do some of the work. Use Fear to convince the little heaven-angel to that any escape attempts would fail and getting caught by Tizzy would be worse than staying quiet and cooperating with Mariah. With enough essence, she shouldn’t have any problems being convincing on that last point. Not when it was true. But it was absurd to rely solely on resonance to keep a heaven-angel in its place. Technology existed to perform the job more consistently and without the requirement of constant supervision, and Mariah would take advantage of it.

It took time and salvaged materials to come up with her solutions.

From the scrap pile, she found used casings for Spirit Batteries—the kind meant to trap stray demonlings as a cheap source of essence—to build a wall around the space in her device where a catcher would eventually sit. Refurbished and chained together, they could theoretically hold a full-sized Kyriotate. Even if not, it would still be an effective threat. “See, even if you tried to escape, you’d still be trapped and I could tap into any essence you haven’t spent.”

The batteries would also drive away suspicion if an Impudite happened to notice any essence in the device. No one would care about the Spirit batteries; everyone who couldn’t afford an actual reliquary knew they were the next best option.

The last bit had come—ironically or pleasingly enough—from a salvage operation at her old workplace, the one she had been assigned to when she had been promising young angel and on track to a receive corporeal work and a cushy scientist Role once she reached nine Forces. She no longer had the access codes required to get to the really good equipment in the truly classified areas, but her old lab coat and employee ID, a four pack of coffee from a nearby stand, and a touch of confidence was enough to get Mariah into where she needed to go.

Her salvaged materials fit easily into a pocket, tiny mass-produced blades with one very special feature. Damage done to a celestial’s native form would pass on to their corporeal body next time they took to a vessel or a host. Mariah had used them before, and they made a particularly effective threat for any Hive. Those were always bound by threat of Dissonance to keep their hosts safe, and a well-chosen specimen would stay put rather than risk injuring or possibly killing their next one.

Mariah then focused on the setting where the actual specimen itself would stay. That proved simple enough. There were variances in the crystals she carried, and any one could be the one to make its home here, but Mariah had no difficulties in figuring out a way to make the setting adjustable and secure. What took more mechanical skill and care was creating a dial with her salvaged blades and making sure they could engage and retract smoothly. She managed. And without even cutting herself too badly in the process.

The final feature she added was both aesthetic and functional: a wire running from the inner case with the crystal to an indicator on the outside shell. It glowed red when she set her test catcher in place and went dark when it was removed. If someone managed to take the catcher without triggering any of the other mechanical traps, Mariah could catch the problem quickly without making it obvious to anyone else how she knew.

The detail with the light pleased her, reminding her of the LED diodes along her browline. Her divine whim told her to set a few more in for decoration’s sake, like a signature or a mark of ownership, so she did. Property of Mariah, Habbalite of Technology.

All said, it took over half a decade before the final screw was locked into place. Mariah stepped back and beheld her solution. The diodes aside, it looked plain enough, and after enough time set at the corner of the table, no one would pay it any serious attention. Her divine whim told her it was perfect.

The work itself done, all that was left for Mariah to do was get rid of her schematics and coded notes. Those were already risky to have on hand while she was actively working on her project. With their primary utility exhausted, Mariah needed to dispose of that vector of discovery, so she slipped those papers into a cardboard box holding other forms—incident reports, reimbursement requests, other kinds of paperwork that might imply that the lab was not operating at 100% compliance to either to the standards her Archangel set or to the completely different set of standards recommended by the Game auditors who did spot checks on this facility every year. Mariah then took the whole box to Tizzy’s own personal supply closet—the one Mariah and her coworkers never raided—and had the Paper Shredder take care of the whole mess of documents. For good measure she vacuumed up all the scraps and incinerated those as well.

And once that was done, Mariah headed out to a different plane of existence and pulled her vessel around her. There was always another quota to fill, if not now, then soon, and with the cage ready, she could focus her efforts on finding the one to keep.

Chapter 9: Raye keeps Mariah entertained.

Chapter Text

Mariah ends her description of our cage with the conclusion she wishes us to reach. “So that’s why it’s a bad idea to try to escape.”

Do we think she told us the full truth about our cage and the efforts she went through to build it? Not at all. This is Hell, and here, the full truth may be rarer than sunlight. There’s a very adventurous bit where she sneaks into a—we think it’s a psychology lab, or maybe neurology lab or something in that realm, Mariah doesn’t explain in detail—and manages to bluff her way in past the security system. That sounds more like the kind of comic book caper we would read in Yves’ library in the “Stories imagined by elementary-schoolers who just saw their very first spy movie” section.

(Nothing against those stories! They’re great! We’re just saying that particular bit of Mariah’s story hits that level of realism.)

There’s also some very obvious eliding going on. Little details that Mariah almost let slip out before she caught them. Points of vanity, mostly, particularly anywhere that she might have seemed weaker or subordinate. Mariah told us this story because wants us too scared to make an escape attempt, but she also wants us to be impressed with her strength and ingenuity.

(Honestly, the whole concept is pretty impressive. Horrible. Massively unfun to be caught in. But impressive. Very creative.)

What we are willing to accept as truth is that the actual security measures she describes are in place. While it’s a near certainty that at least one component won’t function as intended—it is a Vapulan device after all—it’s far less certain that any failures will be actually useful (or safe) for us. That is, we can’t count on anything malfunctioning in our favor.

It should be discouraging. It is discouraging. The heroic fantasy a few of us have of forcing our way out of the catcher that’s stored here in the depths of Tartarus and rescuing our choirmates has dissolved like sugar in water, the way that our prison (being actual rock and not rock candy) absolutely will not.

But it’s also information we didn’t know before. We’ve had an unconfirmed feeling that trying to escape before knowing the details would be a bad idea. Now that Mariah’s confirmed those feelings (the natural way, not via resonance), the bits of us we’ve allocated to planning a potential brute force escape are free to ponder in other directions. Knowing which approaches won’t work gives us the ability to focus on the ones that just might.

—

“You could Fall.” Mariah says, while she works on something that rattles a bit when she moves. What that sound translates to in tangible reality, we can only speculate. We let a few idle minds do so, for the slight mystery. “Haven’t you thought about it?”

She brings the topic up like we’re having a casual conversation and not like she’s asking us to ponder one of the worst things that could ever happen. That’s not entirely unusual. When celestials from different sides meet and violence can’t immediately ensue, there’s always that little obligatory exchange that happens before more on topic exchanges can occur. (“Why don’t you join us in Hell?” “Well, why don’t you join us in Heaven?”)

Does it actually work as a recruitment measure? No. Do we [celestials] keep doing it anyway? Of course. Really, it’s more a declaration of allegiance to our respective sides than an actual attempt to get the other party to change.

The reason the casual speeches tend to fail is that most celestials like being what we are, and for those who don’t—there’s little incentive to just switch sides casually.

For angels, Falling is a long and continuous chain of Not Doing Things Right. One action against our [angels’] Choir or Word (for those who don’t serve Creation) nature is one note of dissonance. Get one or two, and we can repent and cleanse ourselves. If we get too many at once and can't easily get rid of them, we can wrap them up in Discord. Better to accept a stable hard-to-remove blemish than to let the dissonance accumulate and risk going Outcast, or Falling.

And even if we [again, angels in general] are fine with consistently going against our nature and feeling that itchy buzz of dissonance, Judgment sure isn’t. Working to prevent Angels from going Outcast and Falling and bringing home those who have strayed too far is probably their one useful service to the rest of us.

For us [me, specifically], how can we get dissonance? Why would we choose to do so? (Dissonance is always a choice at some level.)

We have that one note from learning Helltongue. It’s a bothersome little speck on our awareness and an acceptable price for our ability to follow the majority of conversations that take place here. Sure, it brings us a little closer to a potential Fall, but it’s not enough to tip us over on its own. But after that? Our Archangel doesn’t have anything that specifically violates his Word, and there aren’t any hosts here for us to possess and then leave worse off than before.

We could lie. But we’re getting more skilled with the language. It’s no longer stilettos on black ice to put together a sufficiently true statement.

“I’ve thought about it. Rejected it unanimously.”

“What? Do little Kyriotates in Force Catchers run a democracy now?” Mariah snickers a bit.

We consider her question and try to form words around an experience we take for granted. “Not exactly a democracy. But we’re not not a democracy either.” We say this in Angelic, where the complexity of what we actually mean can shine through in the nuances.

(Our mind is full of the constant conversations and debates, and usually it is the plurality voices that determine our final decision when sets of actions prove mutually exclusive, but we also have times when a single mind with a fundamentally important perspective can and does overrule the others.)

Mariah grumbles. “That fluffy heaven-language of yours sounds terrible. How do you even stand to speak it?”

“It doesn’t sound so terrible when you belong in Heaven.”

We know what we’re implying in regards to Mariah and her delusions, but in our defense, it’s an absolutely true implication.

That doesn’t stop the conversation from ending, nor does it stop us from temporarily being very, very sorry for questioning Mariah’s divinity.

Out loud.

—

“You don’t need to do that.” Mariah says, speaking loud enough to overtake our chorus. In the background, we hear her typing.

“We don’t mind.” We say, with a free voice.

A fun part about being multiple (one of the few applicable fun parts in this situation) is being able to sing Bohemian Rhapsody solo and hit every damn line while still having enough mouths free to imitate the instrumental noises. It doesn’t sound terrible. We’re not nearly so good a vocalist as Freddie Mercury, but we’re still decent.

(Despite what some celestials think, we’re not all better than all humans at all things.)

“Someone might hear.”

“You can just tell them it’s the radio playing. Or some obscure recording you managed to get a hold of from Media.”

Apparently, suggesting that people lie isn’t dissonant, so long as the suggestions themselves are honest.

“It’s annoying.”

Well, then. We’re not sure if that’s actually going to stop us from singing, or not. Probably not as much as Mariah prefers. Not that we sing all that much anyway. There’s a fine line between keeping ourself sane in here and maintaining the fine, fine balance between gratifyingly irritating our captor and annoying her to the extent that she decides to hand her pet lab rat to the Damp Mop Djinn.

“Do you have another request, then? How about disco?”

The keyboard sounds get more adamant. “How about the sound of silence.”

We don’t know all the lyrics to that one, but we can certainly put forth the effort.

Yes, we are fully aware Mariah didn’t mean the song.

—

“Why not become a Shedite?” Mariah asks in that casual recruitment speech voice again. “You can’t Kyriotate very well from in there.”

There’s a simple and True answer to this question. We love being a Kyriotate. Unlike a lot of relievers who usually choose their future Choirs when they’re six or seven Forces—adolescent for a celestial, but still larger than most humans—we chose ours young, when we had no more Forces than a human child.

It was our first experience falling in love with anything long before we ever fell in love with anyone. We were captivated by the idea of seeing the world through a billion different sets of eyes, of never being stuck in just one place (Hah!), of borrowing bodies from almost everywhere in the animal kingdom (excepting insects) and maybe eventually from plants or inanimate objects if we ever end up doing enough favors for Flowers and Lightning, of learning about the infinite variety of viewpoints and using that information to make our hosts’ life better. The more we talked to our future Choirmates, the more excited we were to finally become one.

And when we fledged? And after that, when we went down to the Corporeal? It was everything we imagined it would be as a reliever. Better than that, even, until our little mistake.

These past several months (It’s been months, at least, right? Time is even more of an illusion here, and we can’t know for sure.) haven’t been fun, but we still love being what we are.

Why would we want to trade everything we fell in love with to become a Shedite?

If we ever Fell, we would trade our millions of beautiful experiences for a few sets of stale, limited actions. We’d never be a crow or a cat again, and we’d definitely never get the chance to try out an alligator. We’d be stuck in one place (only one place) at any given time. We’d only ever get to ride in human hosts. (Now, we like humans as hosts. They’re fun and very handy for interacting with the corporeal. But to only have that option? No thanks.) Worst of all, every single day we would spend on Earth as a member of that Band, we’d have to corrupt the person we possessed and coax them into doing something they would otherwise object to, thereby making some unfortunate human a bit worse, both for themselves and for the Symphony as a whole.

Maybe being able to read the minds of the bodies we ride, instead of having to use context or (gasp!) actually talking to people might be a potential upside, but honestly, we like the mystery. It keeps us humble.

Sure, we’re stuck in a Force Catcher right now. We don’t get to have those experiences we fledged for. Most likely, we’re not even making it out of Hell alive. But Falling? That would be like giving up on who we are, permanently.

“Probably for the same reasons you don’t just become an Elohite.” We say, making sure we’re using the tone for speculation. If Mariah is anything like any other Habbie we’ve met in passing, she looks down on Elohim. Every celestial seems to have a natural distaste for their opposite counterpart, but Habbalah are perhaps the worst for it. As a Band, they already consider themselves angels. No one can tell them differently. And Elohim by nature are more susceptible to the Habbalite resonance than most. Which means, if Mariah is typical of her Band, she looks down on Elohim at least as much as we look down on Shedim. That should help her understand our distaste.

Mariah sucks in her breath, an interesting bit of body language in a realm where breathing is optional, like we landed a punch we didn’t even know we were throwing. (Not that we’ve ever really thrown a punch. By the time a situation turns violent, it’s better for us—and our hosts—to just run.)

“It’s not the same thing at all!” she protests. “You’d just become a demon. Me becoming an Elohite would be like evolving backwards. I’m already one of God’s Chosen in Hell. Why would I want to give that up? Do humans long to become apes? Or little amoebas floating in primordial soup?”

We think about the humans we’ve been, and the humans we’ve talked to. It hasn’t even been a century since we’ve hit the corporeal yet, and we’re still amazed at the sheer variety of perspectives we’ve found in that time. “It wouldn’t surprise us. That bit about the humans, I mean. Some of them probably would rather be primordial soup, given the chance. On some days, at least.”

We consider that. It might be fun being primordial soup, if not especially useful. (Although, we’re not being useful right here and now anyway, so maybe we can just dispose of that criteria for the time being.) Have any one of our choirmates ever been an amoeba, and if so, whose attunement allowed them to possess it? Animals? Flowers? Some minor and obscure Archangel of Bacteria we’ve never even heard of?

Becoming a Shedite is right out, but we’re starting to get a bit jealous of creatures too small for any human eye to perceive.

—

Demonlings are always a little odd to hear scurrying about, and our feelings on them are…mixed. On one hand, they’re basically children, similar to how relievers are young angels (albeit with more classifications and subcategories than we can usefully wrap a mind around), and our Word does have a soft spot for children. On the other hand, demonlings are damned annoying. Relievers get underfoot sometimes, but when they do they’re at least trying to be helpful. Demonlings are just nuisances to the nth degree. On the other, other hand, listening to a few of them executing an elaborately yet poorly planned heist while Mariah is out is probably the most entertaining thing we’ve witnessed since we’ve been down here.

Somewhere between the grate falling down to the floor in a clatter no less than three separate times, someone literally bouncing off the wall, and another one humming the theme from a James Bond movie before landing on our prison and getting shocked, we almost laugh.

We don’t. Not out loud at least.

What happens next should be narrated on one of those radio plays that were popular about three or four decades back: Full on sound-effects as clawed feet run across various upper-level surfaces and screws, nuts and bolts (presumption via metallic sounds) spill across the floor. Some crude attempts of slap-slap kiss-kiss type flirting between two of the demonlings, while trying to pretend to some kind of stealth. One of the crew is apparently a Force too large to fly now, and so the others need to improvise a ladder of some sort to help the third escape back up to the vent.

Which, they manage, right before the door beeps open.

There’s a deep sigh when Mariah comes back in, just long enough that she has the chance to look around. “What a mess!” Her voice is shaky, like she’s had to compose herself before walking back in, and the poorly-timed demonling raid is the one minor inconvenience that’s going to crash everything. Our instinct, honed by being an angel and wanting to help people in distress, is to ask her about it. We don’t. Habbies don’t like being vulnerable. Surely they hate it even more when others are around to witness.

“They just left,” we say, choosing the other obvious topic of conversation. “Through the vents, if you’re wondering.”

Mariah sits down at her spot nearest us. “That’s obvious. No one gives them the door code. And they always make the biggest, stupidest messes for the dumbest reasons. I should probably report them for over-destructiveness. At least one of them needs more Fear of fledging Calabite instilled in them.”

The irritation makes her voice steadier. Is an angry Habbie better than a sad Habbie? Depends on which of us you ask.

Mariah stands up again and starts moving around. By our hearing, she’s cleaning up the wreckage left behind by the demonlings and their adventure. About halfway to the door, she sighs again. “Bless it! That was what they were after? They could have gotten those from anywhere else.”

“What did they end up taking?” We ask.

“A ruler. Asmodean and Vapumetric scales.”

“That’s it?”

“And a protractor. They sell these anywhere. There’s a vending machine in the lobby you can get them from, when its not on fire.”

“Are vending machines catching on fire a regular occurence?” We ask.

“No. It was just the one time. Oh, then there was that slime issue a couple years back. But still.”

“Perhaps the adventure is its own reward,” we say before we expand on the topic.

It’s harder to tell the story how we want to in Mariah’s preferred language. Angelic makes sure to mark every little exaggerated flourish exactly as it’s meant and clearly marks anything that’s fictional as fiction, whereas Helltongue defines truth very narrowly. Still, the overheard adventure makes a for decent story, even though we have to stick with the strict truth and only occasionally add in our opinionated observations and speculations. And by the end, as we describe the Demonlings’ eventful ascent into the air ducts, we think we’ve managed to successfully distract Mariah from either of her impending meltdowns.

—

The door slams behind the Damp Mop Djinn. She didn’t actually say anything this time, just came in, placed something down a little bit away from us, and thumped out.

“What did the Damp Mop Djinn want this time?”

“What? Who?”

“Damp Mop Djinn. Your supervisor.” We imitate the sound she makes, which is probably easier to accomplish with multiple mouths, and we wonder how we’d pull it off with just one. “Thump-schlorp. Thump-schlorp. Thump-schlorp.”

We swear we hear a snicker. “Oh! You’re talking about Tizzy. Just…another repair job. There’s a dud lot of control collars, and I need to get them working again.” A minor unobtrusive silence for a bit while Mariah does something that sounds fiddly. “Damp Mop Djinn, huh?”

At least Mariah sounds amused.

—

Another day, another something being repaired (something awkward and heavy, Mariah seems barely able to lift it). We really should start learning about what kind of devices they keep here, just for the sake of mental inventory. But then, do we really want to know what they keep here that requires so many repairs?

The clicking of her nails on the table is the only sign that Mariah’s about to start a conversation. The parts of us that manage interactions with her perk up.

“I could push you,” she says at last.

Some of us have started considering why this topic in particular means something to her. This is the third time she’s mentioned it since she came back to Hell, which isn’t typical of mixed-side relations. Casual recruitment attempts tend to trickle off after the second or third meeting as there’s better small-talk to make if anyone is still bothering to talk at all. Actual recruitment attempts start taking a different tenor—either more seductive or more threatening.

(That is to say, if Mariah were trying to push us, she’d either do more to sell us on the concept of Hell, Shedim, and her Prince or she’d break out the more aggressive interrogation techniques specifically designed to break people.)

Even if Mariah speaks lightly, her persistence in bringing up this subject gives away how much this topic means to her.

“But would you?” Possibly, it’s unwise to provoke the Habbie, yes, but too many of us feel talkative at the moment to stop the filter. We can’t even blame our carelessness on Mariah’s resonance. We’re taking a risk, and we’re all various levels of certain that the answer to our question is ‘no, she wouldn’t’.

Mariah freezes in her repair attempt. A tool hits the table with an uneven thud. (Maybe a screwdriver?) For better or worse (worse), we have her complete attention.

“Do you really think I’m that soft a touch? Maybe I would.” Her voice goes low and heavy, it reminds us a bit of the Damp Mop Djinn when she threatens Mariah—not that it’s a comparison we’d make out loud to our Habbie friend. “You have so much confidence in your own divinity. Wouldn’t it be interesting to determine where the limit to your Angelic nature lies?”

We shudder in what little room we have here.

A half-dozen outstretched fingers draw pictures in the closed and hypothetical air—the thoughts and reasonings from the half-dozen minds who’ve all paid various types of attention to our captor these past several months. The questions she asked us about dissonance and Outcast status when we were first captured? Those could fit into a Fall narrative involving a Habbalite of Vapula. Establish a baseline, then test the subject (us) to a failure point, at which point any subsequent punishment inflicted is well-deserved. Repeat until Fallen, dead, or a Discord-filled mess.

But she hasn’t pushed us in that direction yet, not even tentatively. We remember her reactions when she’s discovered that one of our captured Choirmates Fell.

(And what becomes of those Shedim? Do they get the opportunity to join up with Tech? Or are there Shedite specific experiments they become part of? Never mind. We don’t want to know.)

Sure the reaction could be a performance, but what reason would Mariah have to fake vulnerability? This isn’t like the corporeal, where a demon can fake vulnerability to get of a trap. Nothing in the current dynamic calls for it.

Not that we want to tell her that line of reasoning. “You put a lot of work into this whole set up. You spent a better part of a decade building this cage to hold us. Then you put in the effort to teach a Hive Helltongue so we could speak your language. Shedim are everywhere here, but a Kyriotate, in Hell? That’s rare. And, lucky you, you get to keep an angel with more forces than you locked up in the corner and attending to your every move.”

We’re not sure what that subverbal noise Mariah makes actually means, but we’re on a roll and not enough of us care to stop.

(There is a mind that is figuratively watching through its fingers as we say these things. Also, we’re slipping into the plural out loud, another sign we’re not totally in control of ourselves.)

“Maybe in a century or so, you’d get bored of us and put some effort into it. But we’re not a prize your Prince—”

“Archangel!” Mariah hisses the correction.

“We’re not a prize your Superior will commend you for breaking. We’ve never worked for Lightning, nor were we very involved with sciences in general. Whatever reward you get for recruiting us won’t make up for the fact that you didn’t hand us over in the first place.”

We take one of those figurative breaths before we get too loud.

“Plus, I like being a Kyriotate. I’d resent becoming otherwise. If you did somehow manage to push me over the edge, I’m pretty sure I’d go out of my way to make your life miserable. Do you really need another larger demon bullying you?”

The nails are ominous, slow clicks on a table. We’ll probably regret this conversation later.

“So the best guess I have right now is that you’ll keep me around until you get bored with having a pet Kyriotate. Then you’ll dispose of me in a way that gets you closer to a quota if you can manage that without anyone finding out. Which, I highly doubt, since I’d have no reason not to tell on you. Or maybe you’ll just abandon us for the next novelty that comes around.”

We pause just long enough to let a few forces consider that.

“Oh Kira, you better hope I never get bored of you.”

We go silent at that. Perhaps that explains why we’re trying so hard to engage with her. None of us know what to do with this situation, what options are available to us, or if we can find a way out that doesn’t lead to an experimental death scene. What we do know is that encouraging this little Habbalite to interact with us buys us a little more time. “Do you even like Shedim enough to try and give Hell a new one?” We finally ask.

The sound of the repair work pauses. Her nails hit the table. “They’re gross and slimy. They’re not nearly so pretty as Kyriotates.”

(Huh. ‘Pretty’ is not a word we often hear in regards to our Choir’s celestial forms.)

“So you probably wouldn’t make any efforts to push me.” It’s only half a question.

“Probably not.”

—

Mariah is being weird. Well. Let’s rephrase that. Mariah is being weird in a way that’s unusual for her. Of course, we can’t actually see in this place. We’re still in the same gray-blankness of the Force Catcher, after all. But one of our mental images is the impression of our adolescent Habbie drawing hearts in her math notebook filled in with lines like ‘Mariah + Kira 4 evah!’

Of course, that’s a ridiculous image. A Vapulan would be more likely to have a high-powered laser and carve their declaration of love into the some underutilized landscape. Nothing says ‘undying love’ or at least ‘heavy infatuation’ like a forest fire.

In retrospect, maybe it would have been a better idea to just accept the emotion she threw at us. It couldn’t feel any weirder than this from the inside.

“I don’t get why you would bounce that, Kira.” Mariah says that name with a bit of a dreamy sigh, like we’re her first crush. “It wasn’t even—” She cuts off there, her head still apparently not fucked up enough to say what’s really on her mind. “It wouldn’t have hurt you.” She finishes.

It’s vulgar. It feels like a betrayal to accept the Love without even trying to bounce it, even as it might have felt wonderful in the moment.

We’re not trying to fall in love with this Punisher, or any demon, not of our own will, and certainly not artificially. We’re definitely not going to allow ourselves to love the one who keeps us here trapped in this one spot with nothing useful to do.

“Not that.” The voice that surfaces is the one that can be gentle about things like this. It reminds us of how our mother used to speak to us when we made a mistake that needed correction. “We know it won’t last. Isn’t true. At least the emotions that hurt are plausible.”

“Don’t say that.” She’s practically pleading.

She’s being vulnerable around us again. One part wonders how angry she’ll be when the feeling wears off, and she realizes how much of herself she temporarily gave away.

—

Damp Mop Djinn—Mariah calls her Tizzy—leaves the room with barely a goodbye.

Mariah’s backlashed Love wore off a few weeks ago, and since then she hasn’t spoken to us at all, except to tell us when there were eavesdroppers coming. She hasn’t even tried to resonate us.

That is until we start hearing another set of noises. Drawers and cabinets locking. A computer being shut down. The sound of the buttons on our prison being engaged.

“I’ll be gone for a little while. There’s another quota.” She pauses. “Maybe someone better will come along.”

Most of us doubt it.

“Anyway, there’s also a Game audit coming up. So, you’ll need to stay extra quiet.”

“Game audits?”

“Yes, so stay quiet. And one more thing…” Mariah trails off and we hear the disturbance of several essence being sent. What hits is a full on dose of loneliness; our Forces soaked through and weighed down by the despair of having no Archangel, no Mother, no acquaintances or friends of any kind, not even the ones with an applicable sarcasm marker. Our only company is the Punisher who pushes this emotion into us, and even she’s at the far side of the room, ready to turn out the lights and walk out the door with barely a goodbye.

“Something for you to think about, while I’m away.” Mariah says cheerfully as opens the door and walks away for however long this next quota takes her.

Chapter 10: Raye receives a few messages.

Chapter Text

The artificial loneliness wears off possibly before Mariah even puts her vessel back on. That’s how the Habbalite resonance works: the higher the intensity, the shorter it lasts. The problem, though, is that the loneliness itself wasn’t false, just the degree. We guess Mariah can do that when she knows our emotions. Her artifact ring can tell her that, if she was somehow unable to guess. We’re almost completely isolated down here. The exact one person even remotely safe to talk to is the one who keeps us prisoner, and she’s also gone half the time. About half. Temporal accuracy continues to elude us.

So, yes, most of us are lonely most of the time. Not all of us can be stoic about it.

(We don’t need to be stoic. We’re not an Elohite.)

Sure, we have more important things to worry about—we’re still trapped in Hell after all—but a mind does wonder, who’s even noticed that we’ve gone missing?

It’s not our primary thought, or even one that’s particularly useful to dwell upon. It makes more sense to focus on the external environment and figuring out whether we have anything more useful to do down here besides survive. Some of us come up with half-baked escape plans—all individually guaranteed to fail, but parts of which may actually become useful in the future, like doodles on scraps of paper that eventually translate into a finished painting. But it’s a thought we’re having nonetheless.

These thoughts are useless: unhelpful, unfun, uncomforting, but we need multiplicity the way Mercurians need people and Ofanim need motion, and thinking background thoughts about the ones we knew in our previous life keeps our multitudes from focusing too hard on the singular emptiness of this time and place. So while one mind bothers to process the random Demonling conversations, and the rest dream up impossible escapes, one follows that train of thought and daydreams of rescue attempts.

—

Strictly speaking, we don’t qualify as a loner. We have a few close friends and a fairly wide spread of celestial acquaintances within our most frequented geographic area. We attend a few parties, send a Force or two to an occasional meet-up, and help out with a mission now and again when we’re asked. However, we do our real job most effectively without much celestial attention on us, and as such we usually work independently.

(Worked. Past tense. Because for the time being, we’re just sitting here dormant.)

Most humans we possessed, like our alleged Barbara, were completely unaware of the celestial War being fought around them. They just lived their lives, and mostly that’s what we wanted (still want) for them too. But everyone can become a little better for themselves and the world around them, and when what’s most likely to help them overlaps with our own abilities, that’s when we had a project. We mostly worked on short-term ones: A few days or weeks spent on observation, a few hours or days (or a few hours over a few days) actually in the host to do some small favors or make slight environmental adjustments.

The favors acted like rent or maybe like insurance. (“Thank you for letting us use your body. We folded all your laundry for you, and had someone in to fix your water heater.”) The environmental adjustments focused more on contextual storytelling and long-term suggestions. Those were one the fun parts of our job (one of them). We got to dig up all sorts the little clues scattered about our Host’s lives and arrange them; our hosts got to decide what to do with the information given: An ad for a dream job circled and left at the top of the newspaper stack, a neat rock from a nearby river left in the hand of a recluse, an old photograph of an old flame left sticking out of an envelope.

(Okay, and sometimes we spotted an extra Force or potential extra Forces and got to work on an entirely different kind of observation and matchmaking process.)

Rarely, we would take on a regular host. A decade or two back, we had our friend (sincere) Sylvia who occasionally loaned us her body for host use. In exchange, we served as an assistant for her pottery studio, and occasionally looked after her children. It was a nice set up while it lasted. But children grow up, and they all needed to become who they were going to be, not what some angel thought they should be. We know some Hives who have stuck within the same family-line for generations to the point they’re considered a permanent part of the household. Us? We’ve always preferred to move on.

(Permanence scares us. Good thing it doesn’t truly exist.)

So, we had a quiet, understated job that kept us moving and mostly out of celestial society. We helped our fellow angels when asked and kept mostly out of the way of demons. That plus the ability to competently complete paperwork is enough to give a Creationer a reputation for being sensible. Some of us [Angels of Creation] get tri-state alerts sent out for them if they’re not heard from on a weekly. Us? When we go a few months without checking in, ‘busy’ is a plausible enough explanation that no one would even consider ‘in danger’ as an option for a very long time.

We used to embrace our sensible, responsible reputation. It’s how our mother raised us, and it always keeps more uptight Words on their toes to see one of us who isn’t constantly and obviously acting on our whims. Now, however, most of our minds are changing on this point. Aren’t we tired of being sensible?

What is the sensible thing to do when one is locked in a Force Catcher, anyway?

—

The call for help comes up unexpectedly via Celestial Tongues and with it comes exactly one note of essence. It’s from Telly, an old acquaintance—nearly a friend—of ours.

Dark Humor snatched Darius's attuned. We need eyes. Call the usual number.

Or thereabouts, anyway. Celestial Tongues is very approximate with how concepts string together.

We can’t answer him. There’s probably no phone here that connects up to the corporeal, and even if there is, then we’d, what? Convince some random demonling to dial said hypothetical phone and make sure we were within shouting distance? And do that without either arousing suspicion or lying? That’s absurd enough to amuse us briefly.

Calling back via Celestial Tongues is impossible. First off, we don’t actually know the song. Even if we did, we can’t use any of our songs in here. Otherwise, who would have teleported herself and her crystal somewhere far, far away once she realized how dire the situation was? This Hive.

Sorry, Telly, no answer for you this time.

Days or weeks later, the follow-up comes in while Mariah is still out.

She’s back safe. Call us when you’re free and in the area.

Funny how words can take on different meaning from context. Telly means ‘free’ as in ‘available’ or ‘not busy’, but what we need is ‘free’ as in ‘not imprisoned’. If (when) we get out of here, we’ll have to tell him the story. Or perhaps not. Malakim tend to be inflexible about some things, particularly honor, and particularly where associations with demons are concerned. And we know deep down where that note of dissonance settles on us, we’ve already crossed some of those lines.

(No, Telly, we can’t figure out how to stab Mariah from inside here. Does it makes us more honorable if one of our minds has at least attempted to think of a way?)

But the exchange confirms our impression. Acquaintances, given no other information, will assume we’re busy in some other locale before they’ll even consider the possibility we’re in trouble ourself.

Perhaps it’s better that way. What could they do if they found out? Mount a rescue mission?

We try and picture this. Our casual friends and acquaintances largely do the same sorts of community service work we do, or at least the subset of that work that can be done effectively from a constant vessel and Role. Few of them actively hunt demons; even the Malakim leave that for emergencies or vacation time. We wonder if any of them would have the resources to hunt down that one. Assuming they could identify the correct demon and follow her into Hell, what then? They’ll be immediately identified as angels. Disguises are effective in corporeal work, but celestially we are what we are. If there’s a way of effectively concealing celestial forms…we [I and presumably every other celestial] don’t know about it. So, to rescue us, a group of obvious angels (actual angels, not Habbalah) in Hell would have to stay alive and undetected in the land of Tartarus, get to whatever building we’re being stored in, navigate through that building completely undetected, find this room, get the access codes, and bypass all the security measures on this cage. All without being able to speak or even understand the local language.

(Unless any of them are actually former demons and we just never found about it.)

There’s a reason Heaven hasn’t invaded Hell. If the Commander of the Legions of God or whatever the official title of the Sword Archangel is hasn’t issued the order to storm Hell and win the war, how could we think any smaller scale rescue attempt would be anything other than a suicide mission?

Yes, it’s better for our acquaintances if they keep on assuming we’re busy.

—

Our friend Cole will miss us, but that’s more of an ordinary background sense of missing, not the ‘in danger’ sense of missing. It would still miss us even if we were exactly where we belonged and living our regular life. We [both] lose contact often. Cole’s a busy (workaholic) Ofanite, in service to War, preparing for its new Role in the opposite side of the world from us. Our time together is limited to a few rare vacations, when War gives Cole leave time and we’re between projects. Sometimes we send gifts back and forth, but not often enough to depend on. It’s intentional on War’s side. After a few incidents, they made a point of stationing it far, far away from us [me].

It’s not so much that we [Cole and I] work poorly together, so much as our individual approaches to creativity don’t temper the other one’s in the slightest. We [one or the other of us] will suggest a fairly simple idea, say testing out the effects of squirrel feet as a decorative technique on the rim of a plate, and the whole activity tends to escalate until we’re surrounded by a shelf or two’s worth of of broken crockery, crowds in front of Sylvia’s house, a feature on the six-o-clock news about squirrels doing sculpture, and a probable Soldier of the Media attempting to trying to sell us on the concept of a sitcom about a dog who makes pottery. To take an example from the last time they visited us.

Everything turned out fine. We [Cole and I] are good at cleaning up our messes. We tidied up the shed and learned a bit about ceramic repair, Sylvia got a whole set of new (and paying) students for her pottery classes, and the no-longer Soldier of the Media now works as a wildlife conservation advocate last we heard.

Just, we suppose, War prefers NOT to have the messes exist at all.

So, while Cole would have missed us from the moment we disappeared and has been missing us from the moment its last vacation ended, our lack of contact wouldn’t translate into a call to action until further information came. We’re [both] angels. We have a job to do. It has a job to do. There are people to help, and a War to fight.

It wouldn’t actually know something was wrong until their next vacation. Maybe it still wouldn’t if it took them a while to realize that none of our usual contacts had seen us recently.

And see above about what it could even do about our situation once it found out about the problem. Maybe a bit more than our local acquaintances, having actually been a demon in the past and having access to more people who directly confront demons in the present. The language barrier wouldn’t be as much of an issue in Cole’s version of the hypothetical rescue mission, but every other problem would still exist. A wheel of fire does not simply roll into Hell undetected. Nor would Cole have any useful local knowledge, seeing as Calabim are about as welcome in Tartarus as loose angels are.

(Maybe there’s a Lilim somewhere from way back when who owes Cole a major favor and could be—)

(No. If Cole had that kind of resource available, War would know about it and use it for something bigger than a raid of Tartarus for one not-at-all strategically important Kyriotate.)

We give a silent sigh and wonder when Cole’s next vacation will be. Maybe we’ll find a way out before then. Most likely, we’ll still be stuck here.

(This is depressing. What is thinking about this even doing?)

—

Trade will most likely be the first ones to identify the unusual lack of contact as a definite problem.

It wouldn’t be personal problem for anyone there, simply a business arrangement. Trade provides a variety of useful services to angels on the corporeal, particularly for those of us [angels, all Choirs] who don’t hold down Roles solid enough to access the human-run versions. Mostly these include concrete resources like bank accounts, credit cards, property titles, et cetera, but the one we actually bother paying for is item storage for the busy Kyriotate on the go.

(We wanted a safe and accessible place to archive our sketchbooks after we completed them. Those are our memories.)

But anyway, as the Word implies: Payment is expected in trade for those services. The rates are reasonable—no point in charging too high a price—assuming some outside income or normal essence accumulation or the ability to pay in services. Neither of the last two would normally be an issue, but well, look at us. ‘Normally’ doesn’t apply here. Assuming we could get in contact with Trade right now, what do we have to pay them with?

“Hello, could I possibly interest you in this seven-or-eight Force Habbalite of Technology? She might be salvageable with some psychotherapy. We’ll throw in that demonling making a mess on the counter for free.”

(No. Trade wouldn’t have any particular use for her, and Mariah would have objections.)

Our last payment was two years plus however long we’ve been down here ago. That time, we paid in services, or more accurately, with the contact information for a natural six-force accountant we were trying to teach macrame to. That plus a few post-it notes left behind hinting she should take a new job offer should one happen to come up more than covered that year’s rent and the next. Trade received a new Soldier they wouldn’t have known about otherwise. The Soldier received a new job that paid a whole lot better than her previous one. A good situation all around. Of course, the next payment was already coming up when we made our first mistake, we’re probably way past due now, if not sent to whatever Trade’s version of collections is. When that happens, they might send us message via Celestial Tongues. Or they might send out someone (Cherub? Malakite?) to track us down and personally collect on the debt, probably with penalties and fees for late payments or non-payments attached.

If there were any, the contract would have spelled those out. There probably were. Knowing Trade, they were probably reasonable at least. Trade tends to be reasonable about most things. What exactly those penalties would include though, we didn’t pay attention. The contract had too many words and not enough visuals, and anyway, we were a sensible, responsible Creation Hive who could easily manage these kinds of obligations. Of course, we’d keep paying on time. What would even stop us?

(A Force Catcher and a literally-damned Vapulan apparently.)

We do remember there were clauses covering a Fall or Soul Death, the problems that leave someone permanently unable or unwilling to pay. Emergency contacts, waiting periods, next of kin sorts of arrangements those sorts of things. We didn’t pay much attention to those paragraphs either. We weren’t likely to abandon our hosts for a full on Celestial Brawl or nor did we plan on taking regular dissonance.

Now we wonder—at what point will those permanent problem clauses kick in? And how would those apply to our ‘stuck in Hell, but definitely alive and still an angel’ situation? We’re not sure at all.

What we are sure of: While Trade might send out debt collectors (we picture some very stern Malakim here), they won’t actually go so far as to go all the way down here. Nothing personal, just not a wise investment.

—

Ultimately, we come to the conclusion that while many, many people might miss us eventually, few of them will actually realize anything is wrong. And those who figure it out? We know how little good that knowledge would do any of us [them and me].

Except… Except. Except!

(Don’t get too excited, Raye. That’s still one very qualified ‘except’.)

Our mother. Up until our capture, we carried on regular correspondence with her. Even at our busiest, we had to send a letter once a year to schedule our annual meet-up if nothing else. Once that next letter fails to arrive in time, she’ll know something is amiss. And we know to the depths of the Heart that animates us, if anyone in Heaven can find a way to get us out of Hell she can. Or make one. Our mother is old, she’s big, and she’s on friendly terms with more unusually talented people than we’ll ever hope to meet. All she needs is the chance.

Will she be given that chance? Most likely not. She’s spent the last forty or so years in service to Judgment. The Most Judgmental barely lets her downstairs for our annual visit, especially once our Boss stepped out of the picture. Our mother had to fly through metaphorical hoops to get that one small concession, and even then her request was likely only agreed to because it’s much easier to track down a wandering Kyriotate of Creation when she’s the one setting the appointment. We [Mother and I] get a day together; Judges get to inquisit us [me] on our most recent moral shortcomings. Everyone is satisfied, if also a little annoyed. Otherwise, we get the impression that her list of Judge-approved activities are extremely limited and narrow these days. The real question is not what is our mother capable of doing, but what can she do that falls within her new boss’s guidelines.

We still have a little faith. Our mother is Creation just as much as we are. She’ll find something to do to help us. We know it.

—

And then one day, Essence arrives with a message for us. Celestial tongues again, but not a request for help this time.

A line of address, our name—our True Angelic name soaked through with all the meaning of the Symphony as opposed to the phonetic nickname given to Mariah back on the Corporeal or our preferred name used among friends. It’s the first ray of sunshine coming in through a crack in this crystal, as though Hell is opening up a little bit.

The body of the message: I know you’re alive and unfallen. Hold on, and we’ll meet again.

No sign off needed. We recognize the voice of our mother anywhere and take heart. A message composed by a Seraph must undoubtedly be true. We’ll meet again.

We’ll keep telling ourself that.

Chapter 11: Meanwhile, Jubilee abandons her duties to admire some art.

Chapter Text

Jubilee had been waiting for a months overdue letter when a messenger reliever finally flew up to her, a scroll tightly clutched in its hands.

The message was not, despite Jubilee’s brief hope, the long-awaited correspondence from her daughter looking to confirm the details of their next corporeal meeting. Instead, what the reliever solemnly set before her was the facsimile of official correspondence from one Benchmarc Bank and Self-Storage facility. The physical letter had been opened a week prior by actual Judges stationed at the Tether where Jubilee’s corporeal correspondence was received and the letter’s contents monitored for both Truth and the sender’s emotional state before being transcribed on the celestial paper and passed on to a reliever for its final celestial side delivery.

(It was not usual for Judges’ correspondence to be monitored to such a degree. That treatment was strictly reserved for those subjects held for trial or Creationers in service to Judgment.)

Therefore, Jubilee could be assured that the contents of the letter were not intended to deceive the reader. Nevertheless, she invoked her resonance on the second read-through, to glean what might have been missed or concealed by another Seraph.

Truth: Payment for a storage unit leased by one Raye (preferred corporeal moniker, full celestial name Preerana Kirana), Kyriotate of Creation, was past due by six-months. No holds had been previously requested. No response to previous contact attempts sent to the given primary address had been made. The manager of this Benchmarc location formally requested that Jubilee, Seraph of Creation in service to Judgment (primary emergency contact of the above-named Kyriotate) contact the lessee about payment, set up an emergency payment hold on the lessee’s behalf, or provide confirmation of the Fall or Soul Death of the lessee. Suitable proof of Fall or Soul Death would include—

Jubilee stopped the read-through there.

The green mark in the bottom right corner indicated that the letter had been examined by a Judge Elohite for untoward emotional content and been found appropriately neutral. Jubilee did not feel neutral, appropriately or otherwise.

The reliever hovered just above Jubilee’s first set of wings. It was a young one, a force shy of eligibility for the first-level Law School courses. Too small even, to have picked up on the Word prejudices that seeped through this whole city. Preerana had been as small as this one once upon a time, smaller even.

“Do you have a response for me to deliver?” It chirped, too young, even, to understand the implications of the message it had borne.

“No response at this time, little Helper. Thank you.”

The reliever flitted off while Jubilee turned back to her work. Piles of student assignments in need of grading stacked up on her desk from relievers only a Force or two larger than the messenger. Anatomical drawings of human corporeal forms, marking out the expected differences between vessel bodies and those belonging to actual humans. In theory, Jubilee could finish making her corrections within the next couple hours and then take personal time to look into the matters alluded to in the letter. In reality, Jubilee would be judged for using personal time regardless of whether she finished with the pile on her desk first, and Jubilee’s mind could not focus on those evaluations while the most catastrophic of uncertainties remained unresolved. The relievers could wait another class session for the corrections.

She stretched her serpentine body out nose to tail-tip, and wound her way out of her office and down through the public areas to exit the School of Law. Her office window would have served just as well as an exit but would have brought about more questions than she preferred to answer. It would have appeared evasive. There had been lectures.

Eriel caught up with her before she left the campus proper to pass through the larger Council Spires and to the Eternal City beyond. The young snow leopard Cherub was not strictly assigned to shadow her—he had his own duties to attend to as well—but he must have sensed her emotional distress and the growing distance from her assigned post. At which point, he would have been required to investigate.

“I would prefer to run this errand alone.”

Eriel padded up to her and butted his head against Jubilee’s side, as much a gesture of affection as even a Cherub Judge would provide a Creationer. “I am concerned about your mental state, Most Holy, and The Most Just requires that I accompany you when you leave the city. Most particularly when you are doing so during work hours.” By Jubilee’s best estimate, her Guardian was about twenty seconds off from suggesting she return to the Council Spires.

The Council Spires would not give her the Truths she needed.

“Then we must not disappoint the Most Just more than is required.” Jubilee took wing and spiraled upward into the deep sky. The city streets stretched out below her in that way Preerana particularly loved. After several decades on the corporeal, the Kyriotate still waxed poetic about bird’s-eyes-views and city layouts. Jubilee, however, paid the view no mind. Nor did she think deeply about her flight. She knew the route between the Spires and her destination better than she knew the pattern of her own scales.

“Where are we going?”

The Halls of Creation, the empty Cathedral of her Archangel, appeared over the horizon. In better, brighter days, throngs of celestials and blessed souls would flow around each other, never colliding as they moved to or from the Cathedral. In its heyday—and Jubilee counted this to be anytime before this current century—even visitors had a million reasons to travel here: To make things, to watch things being made, to enjoy the results that making produced, to attend any number of parties, shows or concerts that might be in progress at any given moment. These days, the sparse traffic made even the quietest corners of the law library look bustling. Jubilee spotted perhaps a half-dozen people either coming or going as their errands took them, before descending to crowd level.

The Cherub gave a discontented grumble. “You could go back and keep grading papers? Maybe take a coffee break? Your Wordmate at the coffee cart has some good blends.”

“I could.” Jubilee said, as the Cherub based his suggestion in complete Truth. She could go back and resume her grading work. The coffee cart spoken of did have good blends available, at least when strictly considering only the coffee selection. Their tea blends left Jubilee working with Flowers to obtain any that met her own standards. “It would not ease my heart.”

“Will this?”

“It might. It might not.”

Jubilee banked downward, through the bridge that led to the Cathedral’s main entrance. The gardens stood as immaculate as always, the bonsai sculptures shaped to perfect forms. It was a reminder of her Word’s current state. Nothing in Heaven ever fell into a state of entropy—at least not unintentionally, but the signs of abandonment showed everywhere for anyone who knew the surroundings. The bonsai shapes were the same as they had been the day Jubilee packed up her Heart and a few personal belongings and moved from the garden studio she kept in her master’s Cathedral to her new residence, whereas before a whole crew of horticulturally-inclined Creationers would have ensured their change at least every decade, if not more often.

Jubilee paused at the main entrance for a second to allow Eriel time to catch up and to consider her destination more precisely.

The most obvious and reliable place to check would be her daughter’s Heart. While Jubilee did not know its exact location, with some detective work, she could deduce the location easily enough by following the signs only someone familiar with Preerana would know. She would have done exactly that were she here without a minder by her side. But Preerana had deliberately hidden her Heart away back when Eli had given her the new assignment. It was a reasonable precaution against Judges spying on her and interfering with her work, the Kyriotate had reasoned.

For now, Jubilee would not dishonor her daughter’s wishes. Another alternative was available, and from it Jubilee could glean enough information at least to confirm whether either of the two worst possibilities had occurred.

It had only been perhaps fifteen months, hardly longer than the flicker of a blink in Jubilee’s lifespan. She could not fully accept that either possibility could have occurred in such a short fragment of time, not without more evidence than a single letter discussing a missed payment. But the Symphony could confirm nothing without some concrete basis of knowledge. And what had history proved, if not that any change at all could come about so suddenly as to make the Wind envious? Even an Archangel could be here one day and gone the next. All the basis Jubilee had to put her belief in was a mother’s intuition, and the deep need for Preerana’s continued and holy existence to be True.

Her destination was part of a great Creation. Scenes constructed from stained glass completely filled the walls and ceilings and towered over all who entered. Light shone through each panel in corporeally impossible patterns. All of Creation’s servitors from the most recently fledged (or redeemed) to the most prominent Wordbound were depicted in at least one scene. Even former Creationers who had fully given themselves to another Archangel could still find their image here. Altogether, the work itself took up several enormous rooms, but it was the one that contained Preerana’s image that Jubilee headed towards.

Jubilee found her own image easily. The light passing through the glass painted her a golden-orange Seraph at the center of a large panel on the far end of the room. The dozen or so of her children surrounded her, whose images were then surrounded by their other parents, radiating outwards and all of those were then surrounded by their own parents or those who had first introduced them the ways of Creation. The forms of those they loved flickered as constantly shifting patterns in the background. Following the movement of any particular one would lead a viewer to the panel that depicted that image and their own familial ties.

If not for other matters, Jubilee could have spent the whole day doing nothing but observing the play of light through the colored class and following the shifting figures through every room, but she didn’t. She had come here with a purpose beyond admiration.

Every brightly-colored image in the windows belonged to a living angel, but neither the deceased nor the damned of Creation would ever be completely erased from the work—not even after millennia, perhaps they might have been, should they be forgotten completely—instead the colors of their images faded out into shades of milk white. Pale figures that had been in place when she first entered this room as a new Creationer sixteen-thousand years ago still shone with that remembrance.

Only one of her children had turned that shade previously. Dead, not fallen, as he had been a Malakite. Deven had followed a Balseraph of Lust into an ambush two centuries back and seen his soul set asunder. Jubilee nodded her head in brief acknowledgment before looking towards the image of one who might have recently succumbed to either fate.

Jubilee did not know which would be worse: to have a dead and holy Kyriotate to grieve and remember fondly or to have a Shedite who could be met again in the future and perhaps redeemed but who would also do terrible evil on behalf of Hell in the meantime.

The one she looked towards, thankfully, did not have the characteristic blankness of someone lost to Heaven. The representative image shone just as brightly as it always had. Tension Jubilee just discovered she held in her coils relaxed.

Preerana’s representation was a group of butterflies pieced together of the same orange and golden glass as Jubilee’s own figure and connected to no other parents. Preerana had been a reliever of Jubilee’s own making, a personal project to raise and care for while Jubilee worked on a separate assignment. She remembered cradling the tiny reliever in her own coils and bestowing her with a name.

The ache to curl around someone small again passed through her. Her youngest daughter was alive and unfallen, but it did not follow that Preerana was safe. A safe Preerana would have kept current on her corporeal obligations. A safe Preerana would have set up the next visit when it was due. A safe Preerana would not let her mother worry so.

“Most Holy?” Eriel nudged his muzzle against her flank, just beyond her third set of wings. Jubilee had almost forgotten the Cherub’s presence amongst the panes of glass, and he looked about at the surroundings as though he didn’t at all understand what Jubilee saw that could make her react so. To him, this must have been nothing more than a bunch of pretty stained-glass windows, the same as could be found anywhere in the Eternal City. “Viewing this seems to cause you distress. Let’s return to the Spires.”

Jubilee could stand here for hours, looking at the windows, watching the patterns shift, hoping that one change or another might unveil a clue to the situation that currently lay just beyond her comprehension. But even if said clue did arrive, it would only provide material for speculation, and she could speculate just as well—or better—while grading a pile of student drawings.

“We can go now.”

—

Jubilee spent the flight back to the Council Spires sketching out her next movements.

The stained glass had relieved Jubilee’s fear in the immediate worsts, but she needed someone with access to the Kyriotate’s hidden Heart to tell her the truth of the situation. She needed to know if Preerana were Outcast or being held captive somewhere and kept out of Jubilee’s coils. Jubilee mentally pictured the portraits of each of her daughter’s known friends and acquaintances until she saw the one she needed. The contact was obvious: that Ofanite Preerana liked so much who served War these days. Out of every angel in Heaven, Cole would be the one to know the way to her daughter’s Heart. Cole would tell her what it saw, and, if her daughter were in danger, the danger she faced. Jubilee could trust it that far.

From there any subsequent rescue mission would be trivial—at least in theory—should one be necessary. Jubilee built the rough composition in her mind. Find the right people with the right skills in roughly the right location and let them go at it. Let Cole come along and involve some Warriors if it insisted. Go herself, if she could convince her supervisors of the correct course of action. Or, she thought with a bit of grim acceptance, she believed strongly enough in that course of action to risk the resulting consequences should Judgment not find her arguments persuasive.

Creation and Judgment had their overlap, a fact that few angels from either Word appreciated. Action and consequences, art and critique. The difference lay in the emphasis.

“What are you thinking about, Most Holy?”

Jubilee would not—could not in the language of Heaven—say “nothing”, but neither was she inclined to reveal the full extent of her thoughts to the Guardian beside her. Eriel’s gestures of affection aside, his service belonged to his Archangel first and foremost. Any loyalty shown towards Jubilee was only given as far as his Choir nature demanded. Any detail she gave Eriel—even in confidence—would wind its way through Judgment’s layers of authority until a proper and distincted Wordbound Judge or even Dominic himself came by to inquire about a Creationer’s odd behavioral choices. “Art and critique. The nature of the composition. The proper placement of forms on the canvas.”

She did not speak literally of a painting, and the intonation in Heaven readily called out the metaphor.

Jubilee found metaphors useful, for speaking a truth without laying her intentions completely bare for anyone to see. Most Seraphim developed similar strategies to conceal the truth when necessary. Implication. Circumlocution. Exquisitely careful word choices. A useful corporeal proxy, when absolutely necessary. Jubilee had learned this one back in Knowledge before Lilith had ever opened Hell, even. Well-constructed metaphors did not deceive, but set a useful abstraction to the Truth. The metaphor useful in directing her own thoughts, as well. Jubilee knew painting in the way she did not know how to find her daughter, and it helped to reframe the problem of the second in the parlance of the first. To compose the painting, she needed—reference. Jubilee would not know how to properly render the forms without more to observe.

Yes, she needed eyes on that Heart. She needed to send a message to that Ofanite. It worked mostly on the corporeal, and likely it was there now on one mission or another. That complicated matters, but a discreet message sent to the Grove via reliever with the instruction to find any Creationer in service to War would make its way to Cole eventually.

“When you speak in metaphors, Most Holy, it indicates an intention to conceal.”

“Many Seraphim find it a useful strategy,” Jubilee answered. She flew the rest of the journey in silence, with no intent to speak further on the matter.

—

Jubilee was not surprised to see the summons dropped before her only a few hours after her return—just as she finished grading those assignments actually. Eriel had been attuned to her not as an agent of protection or comfort but as an observer of her activities. Any deviation from the standard behaviors of a Heaven-stationed Creationer in Judgment’s service would merit reporting. The omission of her distress, a sudden and unplanned visit to her Archangel’s Cathedral during usual working hours, and evasiveness afterwards would have caused trouble for her Cherub.

The summons instructed her to arrive posthaste, and so she did.

Dominic waited in his office, a space that Jubilee always found too bright and airy for the huddled and cloaked Seraph who did his work there when he wasn’t in his courtroom. Aesthetically, the room should have had a heavier atmosphere and deeper contrasts between points of bright light and the deep shadows in the corners. Judgment strove to be a Word based in chiaroscuro: Light and dark. Good and evil. Right and wrong. It made no room for grayscale, much less the various tints, tones, and shades that composed the majority of the Symphony.

“Jubilee.” The Archangel peered at her, his eyes six points of candlelight in the dark shadows painted by his cloak.

Jubilee bowed her head below her first set of wings. “Most Just.”

She dreaded the explanation she knew he was about to require of her. In past times, Jubilee would have brought this issue to Eli without hesitation. The Archangel of Creation would have would have been nothing but sympathetic. He would have cradled her head in his hands and spread one of his fluffy white wings over her while she explained her worries, the way he had once when she had found her child’s Heart shattered. Then, when Jubilee regained her composure, he would have worked with her on the plan that would get Preerana back where she belonged.

Dominic…well, one did not exactly hide information from a Seraph Archangel, especially the one who currently held her service, especially when one was a Seraph herself, but Jubilee expected judgment in the face of her distress, not sympathy.

“Your assigned Guardian reported that you were diverted from your duties yesterday.” Papers shuffle before him and he read out. “She visited the Cathedral of the Archangel Eli while under considerable emotional distress. She spent approximately an hour in observation before returning to the Council Spires. When asked about the visit, she chose not to provide direct answers.”

Jubilee collected her thoughts. No sentence written in that report comprised a crime in and of itself. The immediate task she had been set to was completed. Nowhere in Heaven was off-limits for her, and even the occasional trip to the Corporeal had been authorized. While the Guardian was assigned to observe her, she was not obligated to explain her every thought and motive to him. “The assignments are ready in time for tomorrow’s classes. It is not forbidden to visit another location in Heaven.”

Dominic stretched out before her. Rhetorical tricks did not work nearly as well on Archangels as they did on young Cherubim. Nor did Jubilee expect otherwise. All she needed was to pace herself, to avoid losing her composure in front of someone who thought the worst of the Word she loved most, and had only reluctantly accepted her service. “What was the source of the distress that called you to your Archangel’s Cathedral?”

“I received correspondence related to my youngest daughter.”

Daughter. Wasn’t that a contentious word? When Jubilee first came to Judgment, the Archangel had objected the use of the familial terms to describe the relationships she had with her children. Angels, he had said, did not reproduce so could not have offspring. Even Force children were put together with the help of an Archangel. To which, Jubilee had corrected him, explaining the attunement Eli had given her centuries ago and the process by which the relievers she called her children had been brought into existence directly from her coils using both her personal Forces and those of other angels. At which point, Dominic’s objections regarding her relationship to her children had switched to everything but the terminology.

The terminology was Truth after all. It would be an insult to both Seraphim to talk around it.

“Describe the correspondence.”

“It was a notification from the Trade facility she uses to store corporeal possessions indicating a non-payment of rental fees.”

“Why did this merit the visit?”

Jubilee kept her voice low and her words as neutral and slow as she could manage. “Preerana has always been a reliable Kyriotate. She wrote to me at least yearly prior to this, and yet fifteen months have passed without word from her. She has used this facility for multiple decades. Were she known to be lax about payment, I would have received correspondence prior to this, and I have not. I visited the Halls of Creation to confirm whether the worst had happened.”

The serpentine body beneath the cloak stiffened. “Were you able to confirm this?”

“I know she is alive and unfallen.” Jubilee paused, then added “But that does not mean she is safe. I do not believe her behavior would have changed so suddenly, were she not in trouble.”

There was a silence, and Jubilee recognized the conversational stillness of a fellow Seraph resonating for Truth. Archangels sensed the Symphony differently from mere angels. So while Jubilee couldn’t confirm anything further from the limited facts at hand, it was entirely possible Dominic received a deeper Truth from Jubilee’s unreliable speculation. Her coils tensed in anticipation of what he might say next.

“Is she Outcast?”

“I do not believe so. She never had the habit of placing her her hosts into risky situations, nor have I known her to interfere overly in her hosts’ lives. I cannot imagine a circumstance that would have changed those habits in the past year to the extent she would have gone Outcast so quickly. There are few other ways for a Kyriotate of Creation to take multiple notes of dissonance fast enough to go Outcast.”

Another stretch of silence. “But you did not confirm?”

“No. I could not check her Heart directly.” That note of that ‘Could’ had implications. Not the restriction of ‘unable to’ but the restriction of ‘would not do so on principle given the circumstances’. Previous related discussions had been unproductive, and Jubilee wondered if Judgment would interrupt the questioning to press now.

The bright points beneath his hood narrowed, but his next words did not threaten to reopen that old conversation. “Do you believe her captured by the enemy?”

“Her tasks focused primarily on mortals. It is difficult to believe she would be the object of a targeted infernal attack.” Her body rippled neck to tail tip. “However, that seems the most likely possibility.”

Dominic fell into another one of those silences, where he clearly consulted with the Symphony. Jubilee wanted him to tell her what he saw, even if it was nothing more than what she knew.

“What were you planning to do next?”

“Contact her friend Cole, who is a Wordmate in service to War. If anyone knows the location of her Heart, it will be that Ofanite. Once it reports back, I'll plan the rescue mission.” The message had already been composed, and it sat on her desk, ready to send out via the next available reliever.

“Do not. Go to General Records and file a Missing Angel report. Include the correspondence from the storage facility and an account of the evidence that has led to your conclusion. If Preerana is somewhere to be found, there are agents better equipped for the search. Do not attempt to organize an outside rescue mission. Continue attending to your regular duties at the Law School. Will you comply?”

So that was why he summoned her here personally. That order would not have held weight from coming from any other source. It only held weight from him because Jubilee did not know how to find her daughter.

“Yes, Most Just. I will comply.” Jubilee bowed again, the same shallow bow, just below her first set of wings. She expected dismissal at that. Instead, Dominic remained silent, and when she peered up, his eyes were tilted to the side, thoughtful.

“Inappropriate personal connections aside, I am not unsympathetic to your situation.” He approached her, until his head loomed directly over her own. “Were you ever taught the Celestial Song of Tongues?”

“No, Most Just.”

He nodded his head, and a new song hooked into her Forces, a bit more knowledge of the Symphony, an arrangement of notes that when properly sung would send essence and a short message to anyone Jubilee had ever met, anywhere.

“Once a month, return to your Archangel’s Cathedral. So long as you are able to confirm that this Domination remains alive and unfallen, you may send her a message.” He retreated back to his usual distance. “Should she reappear or provide a response, notify General Records immediately. They will process the information and determine the next course of action. The same course applies should your evidence show a change in her condition.”

“Understood.” Jubilee deepens her bow, her head set between her second and third sets of wings. “Thank you, Most Just.”

“You are dismissed.”

Jubilee managed to return to the privacy her office before performing the new song. A message went out to her youngest daughter, one statement of fact and one promise. The song would not allow for more. Of course, Jubilee did not know for certain whether she would ever see Preerana again. She only believed it to be true, and so long as Preerana remained alive, Jubilee would not allow herself to believe otherwise.

And wherever her daughter was, whatever force kept her away from Jubilee and the rest of Heaven, a little Essence surely wouldn’t go awry. A little Essence and, perhaps, a bit of hope.

Chapter 12: Raye eavesdrops on a number of conversations.

Chapter Text

“What does Tizzy want from us again?”

“We’re following the pre-audit clean up checklist.”

“Why doesn’t she just do this herself.”

“Because she is not letting the door to the secured area out of her sight until the Game is gone.”

“But they’re not here, yet.”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s in full Djinn mode. Do the job that’s assigned to you and stop whining.”

“Fine. First item.”

“Lock down the inventory database.”

“Check.”

“Shut down the workstation and remove the database HASP.”

“Check.”

“Place the database HASP in Supply Drawer Alpha.”

“Check.”

“Do a sweep of the supply room for signs of incriminating documentation left out in the open. Place any found documents in File Cabinet XVII for further review post-audit.”

Sigh. “Check.”

“Double lock all cabinets and drawers.”

“I don’t see why we’re even going through these lengths. Nothing excessively confidential ever gets stored here. And check.”

“Do not give them a chance to look into any facility details we’re not showing them. That includes facility-owned supplies. Forget Tizzy; the Inspector will flay us alive if we’re the reason there’s a security breach.”

“What about that? Ah!”

“Oh, that? Just a personal project of the Punisher’s she’s kept going for the last decade or so. Let the Gamesters take a good long look at that if they insist. It’s always fun! For someone!”

“Here’s some tapes. Personal or facility property?”

“…”

“Let’s test them out.”

If there are no red wires, then cut the second wire. Otherwise, if the last wire is white, cut the last wire. Otherwise—

“No. Next.”

Hello. My name is Mariah, and this is my audition tape for the Demolux Hardstyle Tech-Synth Mosh-Pit Orchestra. For my audition today I’ll be playing the Cesium Can Can in B-flat—

“Please. No. Next.”

The connection to ground can best be made by providing a secure electrical contact to the water pop. For best operation—

“Next.”

Hello exercise engineers! It’s time to engage your core muscles with Nestor’s Nuclear Core Workout Volume 1: Fission! To warm up, we’ll get started with some Atom Splitters—

“Oof. Definitely personal property.”

“Should we lock them up?”

“Don’t bother.”

—

“Have we had an opportunity to interview everyone, yet?”

“We’ve interviewed everyone on the staff list given to us, except for Mariah, a Habbalite. Says here she’s part-time staff, split evenly between this facility and the corporeal plane. Normally uses this room while in residence.”

“Which, she’s clearly not in this room. So what’s her status according to your file?”

“Surely, you were given the same file as I was.”

“Of course I have the same file! It’s still important confirm that the information present in our files matches. Mismatched information would imply inaccuracies in the facility’s records. And inaccuracies are subject to what?”

“A penalty for the facility?”

“Exactly.”

“Her most recent status shows her out on a corporeal assignment and authorized to be there for at least three more months.”

“Interesting. Out on assignment, and not expected to be back until significantly after the audit ending period. According to our records, that was her situation last time as well. And the time before at that. Doesn’t that seem suspicious to you?”

“That appears to be a rules violation of some type.”

“If it is not currently a rules violation, it should become a rules violation.”

“Facility personnel not attending the minimum number of Game interviews within a three year period without proper exemption paperwork filed. She is currently authorized to work on the corporeal. She is not exempted from any audits that might take place during that time.”

“That’s certainly worth some kind of penalty.”

“Jot it down with the rest of them. What are we up to so far, twenty? Twenty-five violations so far?”

“Twenty-five. That we’ve caught them on.”

“Good point. Add a twenty-sixth to cover potential failure of documentation.”

—

“I swear, these Game Auditors ask for more and more concessions every year. For their little ‘penalties’. How many will-shackles were they asking for this time?”

“Five sets. Plus a half-case of the Schedule A Sedatives.”

“Only half a case?”

“The request as written was for a whole one, but Tizzy only signed off on the half. The rest were earmarked for ‘confidential purposes’.”

“And they allowed that?”

“Provided additional paperwork and a cash bribe, they did.”

“Are we sure they’re actually the from the Game and not just Greed servitors disguising themselves as Game agents?”

“Reasonably sure. Or else the Inspector wouldn’t be nearly so accommodating. The last time someone caught one of those trying to get past the first floor, she ended up as part of the subject pool.”

“Huh. So, do we even have five spare sets of the will-shackles?”

“We will once we count the sets near the paper shredder that haven’t been properly refurbished yet.”

“Oh, right. And since that Punisher is currently out, there’s won’t be a repair tech available to actually do said refurbishments.”

“Exactly.”

“I like the way you think.”

—

“Have we managed to get anyone through to the secured area?”

“Not yet.”

“Do we have an official way in? A regulation? Any lack of appropriate documentation?”

“Everything is documented right here. Confidential research with explicit written orders from their Prince to keep it that way. Signed, sealed, and filed in triplicate. Authorization is renewed promptly on a yearly basis. Our Dread Lord has not yet sought to pursue the issue through official channels.”

“That doesn’t rule out unofficial ones though. We may, in fact, be unofficially instructed to find a way in.”

“Any chance finding us a mole? Either voluntarily or through blackmail. The Djinn who watches the door perhaps?”

“Not that Djinn. Remember what happened to Balthazar when it tried that four years ago? Too risky.”

“What about our absent Habbalite, then? The part-timer? She’s a possibility.”

“Assuming she has the access we need.”

“She’s listed as the Djinn’s assistant.”

“Doesn’t guarantee anything.”

“No, but it could be an angle worth pursuing. If she doesn’t already have it, we can make the lack of access her problem.”

“Hey, what do you think this is? Ahh!”

“A recording device? There’s a microphone and a place for a magnetic tape reel. Not very well-made though.”

“Do you expect better from Vapulan engineering?”

“Don’t play me for a fool. Is it recording us?”

“There’s nothing inside right now. Ow!”

“See, we can barely touch the thing before it tries to electrocute us! That has to be a rules violation.”

“Stop playing around. Records indicate that thing has been here for at least a decade, and unfortunately, shitty engineering on a device meant for personal use is not a rules violation. Come on, let’s do a search on this place. We can fake blackmail if we need too, but it’ll be better if we can back-up that play with actual evidence.”

“What if someone in this facility is protecting her? With all the conveniently timed absences, we can’t discount that possibility.”

“Then we’ll have to determine how far that protection will go before it breaks.”

—

“So what I’m hearing is that you’re volunteering to be Mariah’s replacement the next time there’s a quota to meet?”

“Hell. No. I have important research to do. What I am saying is that Tizzy should just let the Game agents have her the next time they ask. I doubt she’s even attuned anymore.”

“What about the replacement?”

“Tizzy can go herself. Ease up on the rest of us.”

“And then you’ll be the person suggesting she go do some actual work. How do you think that’s going to work out for you? Here’s a hint. Not well.”

“Maybe one of these days, I can get assigned to an actual lab and not this shithole. I swear, if I have to show up to one more Taco Tuesday event, I’m going to—Look, I’m just saying. Any servitor who fucked up badly enough to land in that position is disposable, and if the Game agents are starting to express interest in that Punisher specifically, Tizzy should maybe take that as a sign to get another assistant.”

“And I’m not disagreeing. But if you say that to Tizzy without an appropriate replacement lined up and ready to go, she’s going to assume that you’re the one volunteering for the position. Are you?”

“Again. Hell. No.”

“Well, I’m not either. I like having an actual lifespan.”

“I’m sure you d—Wait. Aren’t you the one working on that thing with the mechanical sharks and the synthetic blood?”

“And it’s been mostly non-lethal so far!”

“So, what happened to your arm?”

“It’ll grow back eventually.”

—

“I swear to Lucifer, those fucking agents get worse every year. I’m sure there’s very good reasons for their Rules, but they have to understand that Science must take priority.”

“No respect for Science at all.”

“No respect for our Genius Archangel.”

“At least they’re gone now, and everyone can get back to their actual work.”

—

CONTAINMENT BREACH DETECTED. LOCKDOWN PROTOCOLS ARE IN EFFECT. FIELD BARRIERS ENGAGED. AUTOMATIC LOCKS ENGAGED. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ASCEND TO THE CORPOREAL.

“Anything in here?”

“Nothing.”

“Check the stairwell. Do not let the specimen get to an unsecured floor.”

CONTAINMENT BREACH DETECTED. LOCKDOWN PROTOCOLS ARE IN EFFECT. FIELD BARRIERS ENGAGED. AUTOMATIC LOCKS ENGAGED. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ASCEND TO THE CORPOREAL.

“In here! It doubled back around.”

“We’ll corner it in here! Barricade the door from the outside.”

“Copy!”

“Now, we can do this the easy way, or the fun way.”

“Fuck you! I am not going back in there! I am not! I am—”

“There’s a reason you were advised not to try and escape to the corporeal. Get the shackles on it!”

“God. Damn. You.”

“No, I did that to myself. Best choice I ever made.”

“Why don’t you just kill me?”

“What, and waste such a rare resource? Get it back to the holding pen before it can make another attempt.”

“Yes, ma’am. What should I put on the incident report?”

“What incident report?”

CONTAINMENT HAS BEEN REACHED. LOCKDOWN PROTOCOLS ARE IN NO LONGER IN EFFECT. FIELD BARRIERS HAVE BEEN DISENGAGED. IT IS NOW SAFE TO ASCEND TO THE CORPOREAL.

—

Bee-beep.

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“That little beep.”

“What beep?”

“Just a beep. Or more like a bee-beep. Two syllable beep!”

“Maybe it’s the computer? My master says it makes those kinds of noises sometimes. Usually before it turns off all of a sudden.”

“No, it was coming from here…Ow!”

“Why would that thing go bee-beep?”

“Who knows. Maybe it just goes bee-beep just before it goes shock-shock.”

“Owww! No fair! It didn’t go bee-beep that time.”

“Forget about that! Get over here and help me get this drawer open.”

—

“Kira, I’m back!”

Mariah doesn’t need to announce her return. Our attention snapped back to her as soon as we identified her footsteps coming through the door. No one else here has that humanoid Djinn shuffle.

“You’re back,” It’s a pro-forma response, and it itches at us that we haven’t yet found a more creative but still truthful greeting. We still can’t make ourself glad to see her, even if it means we’re able to interact somewhat safely with something in our environment again.

(That one echolocation attempt was a dumb idea. Especially with the demonlings nearby. Way to almost get ourself caught.)

Not that our lackluster greeting seems to matter to Mariah. Her mind is elsewhere. We hear the sounds of a cabinet being tried and found locked. A key clicks with the lock disengaging. Damp fabric hits the floor with a saturated thud, and we can hear the fabric rustle of fresh—or at least drier—clothing as Mariah pulls it on.

We remember our first few moments Hell, when we accompanied Mariah on the commute of shame from her Heart to this room. Her Heart probably is still in that liquid. We wonder if she’s not allowed to move it out, if her Prince keeps shuffling it back, or if Mariah just don’t bother moving it in the fear of jumping down to something worse.

Mariah starts talking again before we can ask her about that. “That’s the one good thing about the Game audits. People spend less time scavenging, and most things end up where I left them.” There’s the click of a belt buckling into place. She must be done getting changed.

From our observation, the extra time spent plotting more than makes up for the lack of scavenging. If Mariah knew what we knew, she would probably be a lot more worried. Or should be, if she had a lick of common sense. (Yes, we know, it’s a stretch. But people say the same things about Creationers too.) Does she know? If there was an actual concrete plot against her being conspired in this very room, would she be able to figure that out without us?

If not, that places us in an interesting position, doesn’t it? A few minds take over that line of thought and start sketching out our next steps. We need to figure out what we want to voluntarily reveal to Mariah, what’s better left unsaid until she actually asks, and what we need to find Helltongue-appropriate evasions for.

(The best evasion to any inconvenient question is probably to steer her away from asking it in the first place.)

(Mother has told us a few times that we’d have made a good Seraph had we wanted to become one, and now we get to try out the Choir Dissonance condition.)

“There was still plenty of that. From the Game as well as Tech.” From the outside point of view, there’s no detectable pause between Mariah’s words and ours, no reason for Mariah to suspect what our other minds think about while the foremost one manages the conversation.

Mariah sighs and takes her seat near us. Her claws tap idly on the table.

“They get worse every year. The Game, I mean. They’ll take any excuse they can to requisition equipment, supplies, an extra quantity of damned souls...it’s extortion. That’s what it is!”

“How many of these Game audits are just an excuse for procuring bribes?”

“Most of them. Sure, they’ll make a cursory check to make sure no one is planning on going renegade or secretly harboring heavenly sympathies, but they’ve never bother to dig too deeply once certain resources are handed over. Most of the workers here don’t even bother having vessels.”

There’s nothing particularly fraught about this conversation right now, not from Mariah’s point of view. That’s informative in its own right, considering other conversations we’ve overheard. Our Habbie either doesn’t know about the whispers going on behind her back, or her position really is so undesirable that she doesn’t need to worry about Game agents, no matter what blackmail they may find (or make) on her.

“They did a search here.” That’s about as much information we want to volunteer at this stage until we figure out how much we want to tell her. Or if to tell her.

(On one hand, it might be satisfying to hear Mariah suffer for our lack of warning. Just a tiny bit of revenge for the literal Hell she’s spent a year or more inflicting on us. (And will continue to inflict on us.) On another hand, hearing what gets said and done in this room when Mariah is out is one of the very few useful functions we have, and because we’re dissonance-bound to tell the Truth, our words may be the most reliable source of information she can get in Hell. On a third hand, do we even want to offer her that function? If we somehow become useful, she might keep us around even after she gets bored of us as a pet. Is that good, or bad, or some combination of two? On a fourth hand, our main problem isn’t Mariah; it’s Hell. And so on. We’re not running out of hands.)

Outside conversation continues at a normal pace. “Did they get anything?”

“Some of your tapes, maybe. Are you worried?”

Mariah scoffs. “About that? It’s just some media crap I threw together, so I didn’t have to explain why I had a tape recorder but no tapes. They’ll have a lot of fun trying to get anything useful out of that. I’ll have to make more, though. Any suggestions?”

“What was that Orchestra you made that audition tape for? Hardstyle Techsynth? It got cut off before I could hear it. Or…I don’t know. I always did like music I could dance to. Whatever Hell has for disco-type music.”

“Kira, are you sure you didn’t go Shedite while I was gone?” She sounds amused, but also a little worried.

We give a little snort. “Positive.”

Chapter 13: The forces decide on a reasonable objective.

Chapter Text

It’s a quiet spot in time—moment, few hours, a mid-afternoonish atmosphere—when we finally come to the conclusion that it’s time for some serious contemplation. Were we back on the corporeal, ducks would probably be involved (Ducks make amazing host bodies for pondering), but since we don’t have access to any hosts right now we settle for this rare, unfraught, unemotional moment.

Mariah is sitting at her spot at the computer and instead of at the worktable where she prefers to be when she talks to us. Bursts of fast typing come from her keyboard. Typetypetypetypetype. Pause. Typetypetype. Pause. Whatever she works on over there, it’s absorbing enough that she doesn’t make any attempts to push us into conversation. Not that either of us [Mariah or I] could follow a conversation over the sounds currently filling the room.

We [I] have relegated a voice to harmonizing along with the background noise. While it was allegedly intended to be music by its creators, what’s actually playing right now sounds like someone walked straight onto a Vapulan factory floor, recorded all the ambient sounds—screams included—and then mixed in about twenty conflicting drum machine beats. From context, we think this might be the Hardstyle Techsynth we asked Mariah about. We don’t have lyrics, made up or otherwise, to go along with the music, so the only thing we’re expressing in this performance is our very presence.

This is a calibrated response. When we’re too quiet, Mariah pushes us into conversations, and if we don’t talk, punishment happens. When we’re too loud and break her focus, the same thing happens but with the added risk of getting caught. An idle hum just loud enough to not be lost in the noise sits directly at the sweet spot in the middle of the spectrum.

The rest of our minds focus inward, towards reflection rather than reaction. A lot of new information has come in since Mariah’s last trip up, and it’s time to lay out the bits and pieces to see what we can collage together.

We wish we had more than just the auditory scraps to work with. We could work wonders with a visual feed, or even better, the ability to rummage through a few of these cabinets and drawers. (Or pockets! If Mariah let us get that close. Pockets are so educational!) But if we had the ability to do any of those we wouldn’t be caught in a force catcher in the first place. All of this would be a thought exercise with no consequences at all beyond an uncomfortable conversation with a Judgment Triad.

(At least a specifically uncomfortable conversation, with Judgment having an actual good reason for suspicion, rather the usual Word prejudices related to our Archangel’s current activities.)

(And no, despite what some Judges and Wordmates speculate, we’re as clueless as anyone else regarding what he’s up to. We just work for the guy.)

Anyway. Let’s focus on what we do have. We have regular essence coming in from our mother (four messages since the first), a semi-amicable relationship with our captor, and a whole heap of overheard conversations of dubious reliability. Maybe those on their own aren’t enough to break us out of here, but it’s enough that the multiple Forces are swirling around in this crystal now see the point in coming together to figure out how to make it enough.

We imagine a bunch of our forces sitting in a circle on the floor, cross-legged, while one of them (probably the Ethereal one Mother used to glue us into coherence) has a giant pad of paper and a marker ready to write down what the other forces shout out.

(In a situation this aggressively boring, we take our amusement where we get it.)

First question. Where are we?

We are here, in a crystal, in a box, in a room, somewhere in a building, somewhere in Tartarus, which is Vapula’s Principality in Hell. Security wise, this supply room (we think) is in a liminal space. There’s a more secured area beyond the office of the Damp Mop Djinn and less-secured floors beneath this one. This particular room seems to be a fairly well-known private location, under limited surveillance, if any. Would anyone have talked so freely if that weren’t the case?

(Probably, given a certain level of ignorance among staff and auditors. But if there was any observation focused in this direction…well we wouldn’t exactly have the time for any quiet contemplation, would we?)

The building itself seems to be more of a storage facility for test subjects (prisoners) than a place where actual scientific research gets conducted. Sure, everyone here seems to have a side project (even Mariah, if we qualify as a project), but the real work here seems to be in the procurement of specimens of all kinds for other facilities to use. Impudites talk about damned souls, and easy essence. Demons who attempt to intrude get added to the subject pool. No one talks about the angels directly, but we know the answer to that one too. No, not just us. The recent emergency lockdown was almost certainly caused by an angel.

(It spoke in Angelic, and judging by the crackly flame noises it made while it attempted to evade capture, it was either an Ofanite or one of Gabriel’s servitors.)

We’re mildly curious about the world outside the building we’re in. Where it is in Tartarus, what we might see were we able to get a crow’s eye view of the outside hellscape. We know there’s a certain amount of distance between wherever Mariah’s heart gets stored and this place, enough that she boarded a train to get here when she first brought us down. But our exact position within reality beyond the largest fact of “Hell” and the specifics of “secured floor in a building with possibly less secured floors” are largely irrelevant to the actual situation.

We’re in Hell. We need to get out.

Next question. How long are we going to stay in Hell?

The simplest answer is anywhere between five minutes after the end of our brainstorming session and—not forever exactly because nothing is permanent and endings are inevitable—an indefinite period of time. If we had to place a hard stop anywhere, let’s call it the not immediately forthcoming Final Battle. There we go. If Armageddon actually happens and we’re still stuck here in Hell, we will probably be released from this prison in some form or another. Maybe.

That’s a very wide range of possibilities. There’s many, many time points in between as soon as we’re done here and Armageddon. Also, when this ends matters less than how it ends.

So next question? How could our stint in Hell end?

We can break out.

We can get caught.

Mariah can let us out.

Those are the three basic answers our Forces come up with. Or starter answers, the original construction lines in the picture that we can work from to build a more complete composition. So, what are the ranges of final results?

We can die.

We can Fall.

We can escape.

This serves as a basic reminder. No matter how little we like it in here, indefinite imprisonment is not our worst scenario because we are safe, for given values of ‘safety’ available to an actual (heaven-aligned) angel in Hell. No one perceives us but Mariah, and she has as much reason as we do, to keep us hidden away from others. Two of the three endings are worse than the current status quo. Our situation only improves if it leads to an escape.

Yes, escape is the preferred action (obviously), but realistically, how long can we stand to stay here before we completely break? A quick and painless soul death could be better than staying here and finding out.

Possibly. What are the chances that any soul death on offer to us will be relatively painless?

None. There is no chance. It will be slow and gruesome, and the procedure will be more sadistic than scientifically valuable by the time our Forces unravel completely.

The only good that comes out of being dead is not becoming a Shedite.

(Although, thinking about it, whether that would apply depends on what happens to our forces afterwards. Vapulans probably do believe in that kind of recycling.)

(Anyway. We’re getting off-track. Focus.)

The conclusion the plurality of us come up with is this: Any action we take with the intent to escape is only worth taking if gives us a reasonable chance of escape.

(For certain values of reasonable.)

(Yes, we realize that escaping will bring with it a whole bunch of other complications and obligations. Worrying about those right now though is basically daydreaming. No offense to Blandine or her angels.)

So, lets look at those initial sketchy guidelines, the ones that mark how we’ll put the shapes together.

Break out. This is a Kyriotate versus object experience where we force our way out. This crystal may want to keep us in, but we’re getting essence funneled in from an outside source. So long as Mother continues to message us, we’ll be full up soon enough. Pool together all that essence and make ourselves enough good luck to let us break out. It might succeed.

Then what happens?

We have this box with its security measures. Mariah told us all about it, and while we don’t necessarily believe that she told us 100% the truth (She’s not under the same honesty restrictions we are. Mariah can lie exactly as much as she needs or wants to.) or that all of her measures are going to be 100% effective, we would be foolish to ignore the security measures she told us about.

(And remember just because a security measure is ineffective does not mean it will be ineffective in our favor.)

Do we want to be trapped in a spirit battery? Unable to communicate and used as an a very slowly charging energy source until our mother stops sending us essence? No. Do we want slice up our Celestial form with dozens of small cuts and pass that damage onto our hosts when we hit the corporeal again? Making someone or something else pay for this foolish mistake we’ve made? Again, no.

Imagine we could avoid the traps and get out of the box. This is a secured area. We overheard that last escape attempt. When that alarm goes on, no one can jump to the corporeal from here. We could end up like that probable Ofanite, cornered by the Damp Mop Djinn and a few others and being pulled to the secured area.

So we’d have to time the escape attempt perfectly, so as to have no one notice us before the emergency lockdown starts. We would have to hope at least some of the traps don’t work—in a way that lets us escape them, not in away that damages us permanently—and that other traps let us pass through with minimal harm.

Despite the all the risks, there’s a definite appeal to this break-out idea. It’s direct, it’s quick, and after more than a year of being stuck here, it would be nice to feel like something is within our direct control. We get one shot to try this. If we’re lucky and clever enough to succeed, we escape. If we fail…well, we at least got to choose the timing of our inevitable doom.

Would we rather be caught by choice or by accident? If we had to, that is.

Neither. The outcome is the same either way.

But we would at least get to choose when our end comes.

Imagine taking the risk, and getting caught when freedom is just so close—

Imagine not taking the risk. What if we do everything Mariah says and manage to get caught anyway—

It’s clear we’re not coming to an agreement. Let’s set that idea aside as a last resort and move on.

(We’re also still bothered enough by this facility enough to not want to brute force the escape attempt just quite yet. Hold on to that thought as an asterisk. We’ll come back to that later.)

The second ending: Get caught.

This is the worst end for our situation. Unfortunately for us, it’s also the most likely one, which means we have to consider it. How it could happen, and how to avoid it in our pursuit of other options.

We can think of too many ways to get caught:

We make a noise and someone other than Mariah or a demonling hears us (in retrospect, trying to learn how to echolocate last time Mariah was on the Corporeal was not our brightest move). That person identifies the box as holding a captive angel, and Mariah is forced to hand it over.

Some Impudite with those essence-sensing glasses notices that Mariah’s little device contains exactly nine essence and does some guessing based on basic mathematics. (Can we spend our Essence here? What would we spend it on, beyond escape attempts or resisting resonance?)

One of the other resident Habbies gets close enough to notice their mood ring lighting up. (Or does it only work if they’re aware of someone’s presence? Would the mood ring let them notice someone hiding out with Ethereal Form on the corporeal? Or someone observing them from a mouse-sized host?)

A Balseraph actually figures out the true function of this box. (Wait. Is that a threat? Or does that attunement only work on human-created items?)

(Note to selves: If we get out of here, do some research on what exactly Vapulans can do with their little artifacts and attunements.)

We make the wrong noise and the wrong time and a demonling actually figures something out about the shocky-box and tells someone who actually cares about what it has to say. (Not impossible, just very unlikely.)

Someone manages to bug the room stealthily enough that we [Mariah and I] give ourselves away the next time we speak. (Note. How would we warn Mariah if that were the case, if direct verbal communication was out. An S.O.S. maybe?)

We manage to stay as quiet as we need to but Mariah’s own behavior starts to raise enough suspicion that someone actually decides to look a little more closely at what our favorite Horror gets up to in her spare time. (We don’t know many Habbalah, and the bar for favorite is literally set in Hell.)

We could easily the rest of this session listing off all the dangerous possibilities. It’s almost fun, for a grim definition of fun. Semi-useful too, from a cautionary standpoint. Many of these scenarios might be out of our control, but not all of them. And those are worth considering because we can’t prevent a scenario we can’t imagine.

Mostly, though, it’s a sobering reminder that any provisional safety we get from being a good, quiet Kyriotate is finite. It’s an interim measure. Maintaining our safety takes luck and perfect behavior and not just ours but Mariah’s as well. Maybe we won’t get caught today, tomorrow or next year, but inevitably we will. One or the other of us will screw up. Or all the bad luck in Hell will align.

(And then what will happen? Any number of grisly experiments until we fall apart one way or another.)

The longer we wait, the more likely that scenario will come to pass. Therefore, we need to do something. It matters that we try.

Which leads us to our last ending: Mariah lets us go.

Yes. She lets us out of our Force Catcher and not in the pragmatic way that leads to our experimental doom but in the wildly fantastic way where we return with her to the corporeal. It sounds ridiculous.

Most of us do not believe this could ever happen. We would need to convince her, without the use of lies, that she should let us go.

This will not happen. Our improving relationship with Mariah is grounded in one thing: She believes we are hers (in an ownership sense), and we allow her to believe that insofar as the truth allows. Expressing any kind of interest in escape sets our relationship back to the first stage.

It sounds ridiculous because it is ridiculous. The result is out of our control and entirely in Mariah’s hands. We might as well ask for an army of angels to storm Hell for us.

Except the result isn’t entirely outside of our influence. We can talk to Mariah. And more so, we can think of exactly one set of situations where taking us from Hell and to the corporeal would be her best move. If she were to sever her ties to this job and go Renegade, she would take us with her. Not as a favor to us, but because she owns us.

What would make her go Renegade?

A disastrous job situation.

Redemption. An intention to redeem.

What?

(Maybe we should just try to convince her we aren’t a flight risk. It would be more likely.)

(Yes, but that goes way past flirting with dissonance, and straight into an intimate pile up with it.)

Is it even worth trying? That is to say: Is she salvageable?

What do we even know about her?

She’s low-ranking with low peer-esteem. If she has any friends, they never visit her here. The only people who come into this room when she’s around are there only to scold her or hand her more work. Sure she’s under some level of protection, but she’s also a possible Game target.

(More than a few overheard voices think she should be handed over to the Game to get the scrutiny off of them.)

Her corporeal job is dangerous. No one expects Mariah to live much longer. It says something about her abilities that she’s lasted through this many trips, but her luck will run out eventually. Everyone knows this. They just want more specimens from her first.

She needs angelic (or “angelic”) approval. She actively seeks to impress us on occasion, and it’s one of the reasons she doesn’t want us to Fall. She needs us (an actual heaven-aligned angel) to accept her as a peer.

(We can’t give that to her. Not without dissonance. Not while she’s a Habbalite.)

That is odd. Because according to her Band’s philosophy, they’re all angels. Her Bandmates should be enough to fill that need in her. But they don’t seem to respect her at all. We’re pretty sure every time she leaves this room for a short trip, she returns with her soul overloaded with emotions. Mariah doesn’t get approval from her fellow “angels” in Hell.

We can feel the less-skeptical of us coming around once we consider this.

Her problems might be inter-Band drama, the way that two Kyriotates tend to either mesh well or clash hard. But the other Habbalah who talk in here seem—cliquish. They don’t have a habit of casually resonating each other. So what makes Mariah different? Why doesn’t she have their approval? What makes her weak to them?

She spends a LOT of Essence when she resonates us.

We’ve considered this before, and we’ve mostly accepted the conclusion that Mariah doesn’t focus on Celestial Forces. If she’s not quite nine Forces yet, and has to do hazardous corporeal work, it would make sense that she would focus more on her corporeal strength compared to others here who work in Hell full-time.

Are we satisfied with that conclusion now that we think about it deeper?

Not quite, no.

Mariah talks around a topic related to her resonance. She’s does a Djinn’s job, not work that depends on her own native resonance. When she told us the story about her device, she also said it was stupid to rely on resonance alone to keep us in place. She protested our rejection of her artificial Love because the emotion wouldn’t have hurt us. How would she know? More importantly, why would she care?

If we can figure that little secret out, maybe we have a way in.

No, Mariah isn’t a fluffy little redemption candidate who will jump at the chance to become an Elohite if we offer it to her directly, but perhaps we can guide her around to it eventually. Her life here objectively sucks. Her future prospects are dim. People expect her to die within a few years.

(What if she dies while she’s out on the Corporeal? No, that’s outside of our control, we can’t worry about that.)

Yes, we can work with this. We can be friendly, and we can guide her in the right direction within the confines of dissonance-enforced honesty. Maybe we can even protect her from her co-worker’s conspiracies long enough to give us both a chance. Can we guarantee success? Of course not. But we see the potential here that the other two endings don’t have. Unlike just waiting, we have something to do. Unlike an escape attempt, a single bad move won’t kills us; we can keep trying so long as Mariah remains alive.

(A side thought that none of us are entirely comfortable with: No matter what approach we choose, we need to protect Mariah. No matter how unpleasant our situation, no matter that she’s the one who brought us here, our position does not improve in the slightest if Mariah gets caught or dies. Or at least it only improves in the short-term way where we’re not having emotions thrown at us while we wait to get caught.)

Maybe she’ll even be happier as an Elohite. It’s possible. We’ve only observed her naturally happy twice: Our first meeting at the post office, and our first time speaking to her in Helltongue. If we let ourself have a little bit of sympathy for a demon, we can see how this could be a favor to her.

(C’mon Mariah, let’s get you to a place where your co-workers won’t try and throw you to the wolves for the slightest opportunity.)

(And this is an example of how plurality does not necessarily rule. Most of us are still skeptical, even as we see this approach as the one that. Just. Might. Work.)

Sure, we still can fail. With so many factors remain outside our control, we have to accept that possibility. It might still be the most likely outcome even, but if we do, then is it any more horrible than what happens with the other options? If we do succeed, then this is the approach that has the most potential, and not just in terms for our own escape.

Which leads us to the asterisk of a thought we had earlier: So far in our speculation, we’ve only focused on what these options can do for us [me]. Sure, this is probably one of those cases where a good argument could be made for self-preservation being the most angelic act we can take. Just run. Don’t risk our soul any more than we already have.

(We can almost hear whichever future Triad gets assigned to question us about our time down here lecturing us. How we should have been avoided capture in the first place, and how dare we learn Helltongue. Our mother sent us essence. Why did we not escape the moment we were full up enough on essence to try.)

(Can we avoid that scenario? Is that a topic for us to daydream about?)

Anyway. Back to that asterisk.

We are not the only one captured down here. We may not even be the most captured, when we consider that only Mariah knows about us. All the measures on this secured floor are only partly about keeping the Game auditors out. Their main objective is to keep celestials in. And by celestials, we mean angels. That last lockdown proved that.

We know Mariah has a quota for captive Kyriotates. Every time she leaves and comes back, we know that means she brought a few more into this mess to await their Technological fate (or Fate). And ours can’t be the only Choir kept captive. There wouldn’t be a need for a whole secured area if it were. Force Catchers make for compact storage. You could lock dozens of us in room even this size. So there’s only a need for more space if other Choirs were being held here as well.

None of those angels will escape without help. Alarms go off when they try.

No one from Heaven will come and rescue them, just like no one will come and rescue us.

But we’re already here.

If we can create a chance to get out—and we’re letting ourself think we can—then shouldn’t we make an effort to pass that chance on to the others trapped in here? And if we want to do that, then we need to find someone with sight, hands, and independent motion on our side. Thus, Mariah. If we do a good enough job, we’ll turn our captor into the key that will unlock these cages, both ours and our fellow angels’.

Sounds reasonable.

(For Creationer values of reasonable.)

(For “trapped in Hell” values of reasonable.)

That’s it. Approach decided. Next step, let’s find the key to our captor.

Chapter 14: Raye makes emotional connections.

Chapter Text

The theoretical approach of pushing Mariah towards redemption is easier to discuss within ourself than it is to implement in reality.

Our theoretical approach, for example, can be based at least partially on logic. Creationer logic, but logic nonetheless.

However, our reality right now has Mariah sat in front of us, those nails tapping patterns onto the hard shell of our cage, and we are filled with a sense of sadness so overwhelming that it’s overriding our thoughtful minds. If we currently had a body capable of producing tears, there would be a serious risk of water damage to this device.

How can we even think that redemption is possible for demons? It’s just a fantasy, right? We find a big, bad demon with a secret heart of gold underneath and turn her towards the light side. It’s a silly little daydream the way that humans talk about winning the lottery or becoming famous. Harmless enough to play around with a bit, but full of hazards and way too easy to let get out of hand. Depending on it will only lead to ruin.

(We’ve taken at least one host who had a bad habit of spending all their rent money on lottery tickets. We…did not have a fun time on that job.)

And when it comes to redeeming demons, the hazards and the potential for ruin—those are very real. We had a brother who had spent years on a redemption project. Even thought he was getting somewhere. But he made the wrong choice of demon to work on and…well, the resulting ambush tore his soul to shreds. If he hadn’t been a Malakite, they might have made him Fall.

There’s a reason that most angels who focus the admirable goal of stopping demons (temporarily or permanently as the opportunity arises) tend to do so via violent measures. There’s a war going on. Not even the people like us [me], who primarily focus on Word support amongst mortals are allowed to forget that. Angels who can successfully influence even one demon towards a less hostile path are rare. We’ve never tried before Mariah. We’ve never needed to.

Hell is a terrible place. Floor to ceiling, it’s filled with people who enjoy causing misery to themselves and others on purpose. Demons shouldn’t even like being down here. The fact that most of them do, that some of them even thrive down here is proof they’re all terrible. How can we even we could pull our impossible scheme off?

“What are you thinking about right now?” Mariah asks. By that she means, what do we attribute our sadness to.

“Hell,” we say, because it’s true and as unrevealing a statement as we can make, and even through our non-existent tears—which are already passing because the hard-hitting resonances last the shortest—we have to keep at least one mind capable of controlling our statements. “And how terrible demons have to be just to thrive here.”

Mariah taps her nails quickly in succession, almost like a woodpecker. “Hell works just like anywhere else in reality, Kira. Survival of the fittest. The strong survive. The strongest rule. The weak either submit to the strong in exchange for protection, or they die. That’s how it works for everyone, angels, souls, and demons alike.”

(Not said, but very heavily implied: We’re weak, and she’s stronger than us.)

We don’t have a good answer right now for Mariah’s statement. If we did, maybe we would already be one of those vanishingly rare angels who help pull demons towards Heaven regularly enough to have something akin to a success rate.

We have another sibling who is currently in service to Destiny, specifically with those who identify salvageable demons or Hellsworn humans. And what have they told us? “Eighty percent of getting a demon to redeem is matching the right candidate with the right angel. Or angels.” Sometimes our sibling happened to be the right angel. How many have they helped redeem? A bit less than one per decade since we first came down to the corporeal. Maybe a bit over that rate if we count the one or two demons who didn’t survive the attempt.

(We want to be clear. This is considered good. Our sibling is one of those who could objectively claim a success rate.)

We don’t find that advice terribly helpful right now. The match is already made. The candidate chose us.

(Though we suppose if there were some softer, more redemption-ready demon here, and a way to convince Mariah to hand us off to….No. We’ve overheard enough conversations in here. If there were a better option available, that would be the name we would overhear bandied about as potential Game bait. We have to work with what we’ve been given.)

“Do you understand?” Mariah makes long, slow scratches. We’ve stayed quiet long enough for her to notice our silence.

“I understand your point of view.” The safest approach we’ve founded for these conversations is to acknowledge what parts of Mariah’s speech we can honestly half-agree with.

Mariah’s nails hit the case in unison. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Pretend like you agree with me, when clearly you don’t. You might think you understand my point of view but you disagree with whatever you think I’m saying. I’m not stupid. I can see when you’re trying not to say something.”

Well, so much for safe.

“I grew up in Heaven.” We address her earlier statement, and ignore talking further about our rhetorical evasiveness. Yes, we’ve gotten into that exact habit. Yes, it’s a terrible way to communicate, but do we have a better strategy?

“You think you know better than I do just because you’re an angel who lived in Heaven? Did you know, my supervisor Fell? She told me all about Heaven back when she trained me. There’s no more mercy up there than there is down here. The only difference between Heaven and Hell is the definition of ‘fittest’.”

The best response we have is the easy Kyriotate statement. It still sucks. We know that. “I know my experience. It’s not the same as yours.”

Everything goes quiet. Her nails suddenly still on the table. Mariah wants to punish us so badly right now, but she can’t. All of her accumulated essence went into that initial burst of fake and temporary grief.

Instead, she pushes her chair away from us, stands up, and walks out of the room.

—

When Mariah finally returns to this room (finally, as though she doesn’t regularly leave us for months at a time) she’s sobbing huge heaving sobs. Another Habbalah must have resonated that emotion into her. This happens often, and we realize how short the duration on the strongest emotions can be, it’s possible we only observe what she can’t avoid showing us.

We [she and I] don’t talk about this. Mariah doesn’t want to, and we [I] don’t know how to bring it up usefully.

Our observation: We may not be thriving in Hell, but neither is Mariah.

—

Every so often, Mariah tries to make us love her for a few hours at a time.

We keep saying ‘no’. Even when the warm, fuzzy feelings are more pleasant than drowning sadness or burning rage she usually inflicts on us, it’s still vulgar.

(The negative emotions at least seem honest.)

About half the time when we say no, nothing happens. There’s no bounce back at all. This time happens to fall into the other half of chance.

Mariah traces a circle on the table with one of her nails. We imagine it’s in the shape of a love heart.

“You should let yourself love me,” she says, a soft whine in her voice. Clearly, she’s soaked through with infatuation. Were we outside of this Force Catcher and she knew our Word, she would freely offer herself for that rite. (Completely irrelevant pet peeve: People who assume the sex rite is the only Creation rite that matters.) “You would feel nice for a little while, and I would like it. It would make things easier for you.”

This is a fair argument, though we take it in a different direction than the one Mariah surely intends for us to. We want to win Mariah over to our side [Heaven], and one way of doing so is what a reliever might naively call ‘the power of friendship’. More adult Creationers usually refer to this strategy as ‘seduction to the bright side’. (In our case, platonic seduction. Literal demon seduction is not exactly a smart idea for Kyriotates who don’t do vessels. Too much risk of collateral damage.) Either way, it would be easier—at least for a short while—to act genuinely affectionate towards Mariah if we did love her for a few hours. Eventually we might even get to the point where the little pseudo-angel (demon) comes to trust us.

The easiest answer then might be to agree with her that she would like it, and it would feel nice. Letting her have her way in this might make things easier. But Mariah has caught on to that particular evasive strategy of ours and is starting to hear what we wouldn’t say. (No we wont let her.) More importantly, Mariah cares that we use that strategy.

(Which isn’t to say that we’ll stop using it entirely, just that we have to be more careful about when we deploy it and what we actually communicate when we do.)

Neither does easy necessarily mean better. We might as well try a more honest answer.

“It’s a short-term fix,” we say. “Once it wore off, I would hate you a little more. That would happen every time you used it on me.

“And,” we continue, because we realize this is true enough to say without dissonance, “I would rather not hate you any more than I have to.”

(This is a true statement, and for multiple reasons too. Not just because it’ll help with our plan if we don’t have to entirely fake our friendliness, but also because if she’s our only safe-ish companion in Hell, we’d rather not completely hate her.)

A pause. The silence betrays Mariah’s contemplation. The problem is that she shouldn’t care about how we feel about her. We know that. She knows that. We are the prisoner. She is our captor. She is the one with the power in this situation, and our feelings about her should be beyond her concern. It’s like a Shedite caring what the poor humans it rides think of it. In Habbie vernacular, caring about the (unresonated) feelings of others beyond what’s necessary to punish them is a sign of weakness.

Of course, for the next few hours at least, Mariah does care. She’s drugged on her own artificial infatuation, and in her resonance-tinted mind, we are the best and most beautiful creature she’s never actually seen. Whether that concern lingers on after the effect wears off, we don’t know.

We hope it does, at least a little bit. Our half-baked plans depend on Mariah seeing us as a friend, or at least as some kind of trustworthy acquaintance. That’s why we have to play nice and why we can’t let ourself hate her too much, even if we also can’t allow ourselves to accept her Love.

It’s a fine balance. We need to get her to like us, but we also can’t be too accommodating. Mariah won’t have incentive to change if we give her everything she thinks she could want from us.

Friendship is necessary; it’s not sufficient.

“You can really be so awful sometimes. As bad as a demon, even.”

Sure it’s insulting, but we’re also a bit thrilled. She does care.

—

If we could see right now, our vision would be nothing but red.

“You’re not really an angel! Habbalah are just as much demons as any other resident of Hell!”

We’ve been good about containing ourselves to useful (or at least not obviously counterproductive) statements, but this time under the boiling hot Fury our favorite Habbie has inflicted upon us, no single mind is strong enough to prevent the rest of us from outright saying what we’ve previously only talked around.

Seraphim would say that refusing to let a lie stand is the most useful thing one can do when faced with someone as deeply caught in their delusions as your average Habbalite. The most naive Seraph (or Seraph-to-be, when considering relievers) might consider speaking the direct truth and making logical arguments to be a viable redemption strategy. Convince Mariah she’s really not an angel, and she’ll want to redeem.

“Kira! Why would you say such a thing! God made me the same way He made you! Just because He put me in Hell and not Heaven, doesn’t make me not an angel.”

We know this argument is useless. True, but useless. Habbalah as a Band hold dearly on to this delusion, ever since the First Fallen of the Elohim scrambled to explain why they abandoned their divine objectivity in pursuit of their own selfish motivations. Who else but a Habbalah could inflict so much suffering on the Symphony and convince themselves it’s holy? No matter how good it feels right now to say exactly what is on our minds (and it does feel good), we know it’s not useful.

We are also, for however long this Fury lasts—and we need to emphasize this—out of a single fuck to give.

“Of course it does. Habbalah can lie in Helltongue without getting dissonance. They serve Princes, not Archangels. They burn up in Angelic tethers like any other demon. Nothing about your Band is divine.”

We are fucking this up. We are fucking this up so badly and all because of this stupid emotion we let Mariah force into our Forces. Best case scenario, we are losing all the progress we’ve made so far with Mariah. Worst case scenario, Mariah decides to dispose of us.

But it feels so good to just call the delusion for what it is.

“God speaks to me.” Mariah says, her voice going deeper than we’ve ever heard it. “It’s the divine whims that tell me what He wants me to do. And I listen to Him.”

“What you consider a divine whim is only a justifi—”

We cut off our thought right there. Not because we’re done being Furious. No, we’re still bubbling over with rage and enjoying giving Mariah a piece of our minds, but because the mind always set to listen hears the familiar thump-schlorp of the Damp Mop Djinn making her approach.

We are furious. But we still want to survive this. Mariah might turn us in later, but her supervisor finding us out will turn that ‘might’ into a ‘definitely’.

And Mariah, noticing our sudden shift into silence, follows our cue.

The Damp Mop Djinn (by now we know she goes by Tizzy, but we like the epithet better) thump-schlorps in, slams a box of loose components on the table with a sullen thud, and pauses. We’re holding our metaphorical breath, and the lack of sounds from Mariah betrays her own freeze response.

The silence lingers on. All we hear is the soft woosh of air circulating through the vents.

“Did you want something, ma’am.” Mariah says at last.

“Repair these. Friday deadline.” The Damp Mop Djinn says before finally thump-schlorping her way back out.

It’s not a long encounter, but that and the short wait after to see if she’ll return is more than enough time for that artificial red-hot Fury to cool down.

“What were you saying, Kira?” Mariah says, when she deems it safe to speak again.

All our fight is gone and we’re just left with the post-rage burnout. If Mariah wants to hand us over to the Damp Mop Djinn because we dared speak our thoughts directly, she can do it. “What you call a divine whim is only a justification for whatever you needed or wanted to do anyway.”

Mariah’s nails click down. We can’t tell if that’s a serious warning or mere irritation at what she considers a stupid question. “I’m sure it looks that way on the outside, but God really does speak to us through our divine whims. That’s how we know who needs to be tested and who needs to be punished.”

At least for now, Anger doesn’t push us to lash out. We try to think about this calmly. What would that Destiny sibling do? Stubborn, emotional argument is useless, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t challenge Mariah. It might even be a necessary measure to open Mariah’s mind.

“What happens when two Habbalah disagree then?” We’ve never met two Seraphim or two Elohim together who always exactly agree on every subject, never mind that one Choir can see pure Truth on a Symphonic level and the other one is bound to act objectively.

Mariah snorts. “Then one of them has let go of their standards. That happens a lot. It’s why I can’t stand the Habbalah here. They work around demons all the time, and they’ve lowered their standards for their own gain or convenience. Even worse are the Habbalah who choose to work for Demon Princes, as though they weren’t any better than any ordinary band of demons.”

“And you do maintain your standards?”

“Of course I do. If I could lower my standards, my life would be easi—” Mariah cuts herself off, and when she speaks again her voice takes on a smile we do not like. “There’s a lot about reality you don’t understand Kira, but that’s why God chose you for me. I can teach you. And then you’ll know better.”

—

Of all the emotions Mariah has inflicted on us yet, there’s one she hasn’t tried: Emptiness.

It makes sense.

See we would have to at least try to bounce that. Not out of principle, the way that we bounce her attempts at Love, but out of that one-in-a-million chance that she gets the kind of resonance backlash that knocks the delusion straight out of her like an exhaled breath.

(It’s rare, but it happens. We know of an Elohite who became that way as a result of one of those backlashes.)

We probably could bounce the emptiness. That’s easy enough, but we’re not so bad at math as to think the probability is likely to work out in our favor. Mariah will probably maintain her delusion while also getting dissonant at the same time. And a Mariah who gets dissonant will be a Mariah who gets angry.

She probably knows that too, at some level.

So she doesn’t try. And we don’t provoke her, no matter how much several of us want to.

—

The next emotion she tries (several probable days later when she has the Essence to spend again) is one we would have never expected from a Technologist: nostalgia. We feel it as a bittersweet sensation that reminds us of the better times we can never return to. It’s a bittersweet knife in the metaphorical gut that’s more subtle than just plain sadness.

We think of our friend Cole, back when we [I] just fledged and right before our first corporeal assignment. It had finally settled into staying Creation, and the two of us together had been wandering through the courtyard gardens near where our mother used to keep her studio, two pairs of our hands clasped to its rim. We would be going downstairs soon for our first corporeal assignment, and we finally worked up the nerve to ask it a question we had wondered about since our first encounter.

“Why did you become an Ofanite anyway?”

We were newly fledged not even a decade before and hadn’t yet met an actual demon (only angels who used to be one), and we had naively expected an answer like: “I realized the error of my ways and decided I wanted to become one of the good guys.”

The answer it gave had been much more pragmatic.

“I was getting pushed in so many directions that Heaven seemed safer. Redemption was theoretically survivable. Letting myself get caught between the Game and Andre wasn’t.”

“So demons don’t just realize the errors of the way?”

“Not most of them.” The flame had flared up between our fingers. “Sure, I was tired of everything falling apart around me, but I didn’t really repent until after I had already come up; that’s why I chose Creation, so I could continue doing what I already liked to do. The constraint of circumstances came first. The rest came later.”

Or thereabouts.

The ache fills us. We want to go back to Heaven, but not the Heaven of today where our Archangel is more than two decades wandered off and most of our Wordmates have been scattered into the service of various archangels, but back to the Heaven of nearly a century ago, when our home Cathedral was filled to the brim with life and activity and we [Cole and I] kept our Hearts together side-by-side.

“What’s on your mind?” Mariah asks, back in the present. It’s unfair, that she asks us these questions while we’re struggling under the weight of her resonance. We suppose that’s a way of getting non-standard responses from us.

(We notice this time, she hasn’t been using her resonance so much as Punishment, but as information gathering.)

Various minds have various answers, some (Can we help constrain Mariah’s circumstances in a useful way?) more practical than others (Can we somehow build a time machine to go back to that day?). Thankfully, Mariah seems to prefer the emotional answers which are the safer ones to give. “A visit I had with a friend before I went to the corporeal for the first time.”

“Kira, I’m your friend now. You don’t need to think about anyone else.”

Friend is not exact word we would use to refer to Mariah, not without the appropriate nuance signifiers. (Not quite sarcasm anymore, but not entirely sincere either. Coerced companionship, maybe?) Who can really be friends with someone who ‘owns’ them the way Mariah is trying to own us?

Constraint of circumstances. We’re getting to know the concept intimately.

“It was a different time, and we were newly fledged,” we say. “Don’t you ever get nostalgic for an earlier time in your life?”

Mariah freezes up. “Nostalgia is for the weak. The strong carry forward.”

We aren’t the only one here who talks around what she means. In Habbie-speak, Mariah’s statement means yes. Nostalgia isn’t one of the basic primal emotions, not the way that Fury, Sadness, or Love are. Could she have even hit us with that emotion if she had never personally experienced how that longing could have a bite to it? Would it have even occurred to her to have tried it?

(Perhaps, if someone else had used it on her first. But nostalgia isn’t a typical Vapulan emotion.)

What, Mariah, do you want to get back to?

If we ask it like that, Mariah will never answer that question directly. She said it herself: Nostalgia is a weakness. The past is past.

(We disagree. We find the past very informative in figuring out how to go forward.)

So we focus on what indirect question might reveal that information, and there is one we’ve wanted to ask for while.

There’s an incongruity between Mariah’s band and the job assigned to her. Her job up on the corporeal involves locating her target and then tracking them down for capture and retrieval. Let’s assume this is a necessary job that needs to be done well and done quietly (We understand this is a bold assumption on our part.), what band would be the best fit? A Djinn. Maybe a well-controlled Shedite (if those exist). Something inclined to lurk in plain sight. Not a young Habbalite.

We wait until Mariah returns to the computer and starts the next round of data entry, her keystrokes going at their usual pace. Observing how her attention shifts when we speak to her there gives us another set of context clues to work with.

We mentally brace ourself.

“How does a Habbie get assigned to do a Djinn’s job?”

The typing at the computer slows. Right. Challenging question. Mariah takes time to think about her answer. “It’s a test,” she says with a tight and poisoned smile in her voice, “to see which little Kyriotates aren’t being careful enough when they take hosts. Survival of the fittest.”

That sounds like one of those divine whim justifications. Mariah has to do this work, so she’s going to frame the work in a way that could be pleasing to her, the way our more lighthearted minds might refer to our captivity as a deep-cover assignment. We’re not satisfied with her answer. “So, you requested this job then? Of all the job openings and research opportunities available in Technology, this is the one you signed up for. Despite the risk and shortened life-expectancy?”

“It’s a test, Kira.” Mariah repeats after a long silence. All typing has stopped. We get the sense that her focus is only on us. “Just like everything else in this existence. Tests are given to everyone whether they’re ask for or not. Only the weak complain.”

That’s the answer, isn’t it? No, Mariah didn’t choose her assignment, no more than we chose to be brought into Hell. We know from overheard conversations that no one expects her to live much longer. Sure, she’s competent at what she does, but her luck is just as finite as our own. One day she’ll get over-ambitious and catch someone who is too big for one of her artifacts. Or her luck will run out and she’ll catch someone with enough immediate support nearby to make a difference. No matter how pitiful and harmless Mariah tries to play, once someone from Heaven figures out what her job is, they won’t let her go. Vessel death would be a lucky outcome for her.

And for what? No promotion potential, a supervisor who clearly disregards her, and coworkers who would gladly throw her to the Game except they don’t want to risk being her successor. Her time in Hell must be like a vacation for her, and even that seems to mostly be menial repair jobs and meaningless data entry.

Mariah stands up and walks back over. Her hand hits a table with a blunter sound, knuckles, not nails.

“Pity.” Mariah spits the word out with more rancor than she ever demonstrated for the perpetual Habbalite insult of ‘weak’. “You’re the one trapped in the Force Catcher, and you dare pity me?”

We don’t know what to say to that. We’re not even sure ‘pity’ is how we’d describe our feelings towards her right now. It might be an accurate report from her mood ring, or it might be Mariah’s own projection.

“Do you really want to know why I do this job, Kira? This job, specifically.”

“Yes. Will you tell me?”

Her nails hit the hard case in unison. Then she speaks in a particularly bitter voice, like no tone that ever gets heard in Heaven, not where angels as young as we are ever got to hear, anyway. “Everyone used to think I was promising. I had coveted research position. The Genius Archangel himself was fast-tracking me to nine forces. I was lined up to get respected corporeal assignment within a couple years. But I fucked it up and got a Discord that made me useless for everything I had been trained to do. So now, I do this job and I’ll do it for as long as I need to until I can get finally get it removed.”

We don’t say anything. It’s enough for us to be here and listen.

“It’s a test. All I need to do is be strong, endure these obstacles in my way, and overcome. And one day, I’ll be promising again.”

Chapter 15: Back when Mariah stopped being a promising young angel.

Chapter Text

Mariah had been lucky—no, not lucky, capable and chosen by God—to be assigned to her lab. It wasn’t one of the super acclaimed, top-tier facilities where the right project could fast-track one to a distinction or even Word sponsorship, but it was prestigious enough that a series of good results there would guarantee a choice assignment in Hell or on the corporeal within a decade. Only students with the highest grades could even hope for a placement.

That had been Mariah a few years ago. As a seven-force angel in a class of mostly demonlings and eager to learn as much Science as she could, she hadn’t even needed to plagiarize most of her assignments to earn her ranking in the top two percentile.

Good grades in her classes had given Mariah her assignment here. Like all seven-force celestials (angels and demons alike) she had started out as an intern. She cleaned equipment, fetched supplies and coffee, and typed the research assistants’ shorthand into the room-sized computer that stored their data. Mariah’s hands were steady and her typing accurate, which should not have been a high standard at a lab of this caliber, but was anyway.

From that solid base, Mariah found success easy to maintain. Make her direct superiors look good, their rivals bad, and her peers less competent than herself in comparison. Use her free time to work extra hours on the menial data analysis that could get her name on a few of her seniors’ research papers.

So it hadn’t been too surprising to walk into the Lab Director’s office for her second annual performance review and see the Genius Archangel sitting in the Lab Director’s usual spot while she stood to the side with a faint smile of amusement on her face.

Mariah bowed deeply, and then presented herself to her Archangel with her best posture—spine straight, feet aligned, hands resting open-palmed on her thighs. This was only her second time meeting with him directly. The first time had been her own creation six years ago.

The Lab Director made the introduction. “Master, this is Mariah. She received the highest evaluation amongst the current crop of interns. The highest of any this decade, in fact.”

Mariah hadn’t known that. Of course, she had done well. She had worked hard, gone out of her way to do favors for her senior researchers, and followed what the voice of God had told her to do every step of the way, but she hadn’t known. Pride swelled within Mariah, and she couldn’t tell if that emotion belonged to her or if the Archangel had sunk it into her like metal claws.

“Mariah, is it?” She felt the gaze of her Archangel examining her through his eyepiece. It felt like being a specimen under a microscope, or perhaps like a machine being compared to an ideal schematic only her Archangel could see. “Step forward.”

She did. A patched finger traced an outline along her eyebrow and down her temple, where her LEDs were installed. At the touch, a new force—her eighth one—wrapped around her. Mariah could feel her eyes sharpen and her will strengthen into iron. The Genius Archangel had given her a Celestial Force.

“A resource and a responsibility.” Her Archangel explained. “I have high expectations of you. Use it in the forward march of Technology.”

“I will, sir.” A glowing feeling of Gratitude spread through her. It did not matter that the Genius Archangel was resonating it into her, her own emotions synchronized perfectly at this moment.

The Lab Director looked at her sharply. For an Impudite, she could be rather business- minded when managing her subordinates. “As of today, you are now a Junior Research Assistant. The database will be updated shortly with your new assignments. You are dismissed.”

“Thank you.” Mariah maintained her composure through one last bow before she turned to leave.

Mariah practically skipped through the hallway, fully delighted with that meeting. The Genius Archangel had recognized her greatness! Of all the interns assigned here, he had recognized Mariah as the best of the entire decade. And she was no longer an intern, but an actual Research Assistant.

Others were staring at her, and for once Mariah didn’t care. Let them. She recieved the good review and a new Force. If she kept up this trajectory, she would be the senior researcher before too long. Her Archangel had been proud of her.

If only she had known.

—

Mariah spent that last morning before her disaster reviewing the notes on her clipboard. The information on their latest specimen intrigued her. Heaven-angels were rare even for prestigious labs, and this would be only her second time directly interacting with one. Specimen: AGX-3902, Type: Kyriotate, Quantity: 10 Forces, Dissonance: 2 Notes. Fall Risk: Category 2, Low-to Moderate. Entries in the freeform section indicated a probable affiliation with Flowers and a withdrawn temperament. Typical.

When she was done reviewing the notes, Mariah took a styrofoam cup of black coffee from a passing intern’s tray. A flickering glance identified it as a Shedite who had become an intern a year after her. She sneered at it, silently judging. Two years after her promotion, and it was still fetching coffee and cleaning up lab messes. How much longer would the lab tolerate an underperformer like it?

Not much longer, Mariah divine whim told her. Publish or perish.

The urge to resonate came reflexively, a test and a punishment both. Nothing big or shattering that would render it useless—the lab had rules against that—but a trace of Anxiety. A bit of not-good-enough that stemmed from the Shedite’s persistent mediocrity. If if it wasn’t aware of its precarious position, it should be.

The Shedite looked towards her, blinked, and scrambled away. As it should.

Her senior approached a few minutes later. He was a Choirmate, and his celestial form was tattooed with the patterns of neurons across his skin with threads of fiber optics sewn in places to simulate the effect of synapses firing. Mariah glanced down at the control bracelet settled on his bony wrist. Its mate would already be around the specimen. As the senior, he would be the one to control the proceedings while Mariah’s job would be to observe and take notes. Maybe if her senior was in a good mood, she might get permission to interact directly with the specimen.

“Ready?” he asked.

Mariah nodded. “Yes, sir.”

They entered the room in single file, Mariah behind her senior.

The specimen that awaited them was already contained within a clear cube made of thick acrylic glass. Various tubes and fixtures jutted out of it ready to accept a number of Scientific apparatuses. At about a meter per side, the cube took up the majority of the lab table in the center area of the room.

Even compressed, the captured Kyriotate had been the most beautiful thing Mariah had ever seen in her life, painted in subtle gradients of blue and violet she was sure Hell could only create in highly toxic chemical forms. Its body—as a specimen, it lost any claim it might have had to another pronoun—consisted of dozens of clusters of tiny flowers set within a softly glowing mist. At the center of each clustered blossom was a sparkling eye. Mariah added her own note about probable Word affiliation. Such details were usually unnecessary to the topic being researched, but thorough documentation was always a good practice.

Mariah couldn’t look away from the Heaven-angel. It was as strange as a Shedite but more delicate and gorgeous than any one of those could ever be. Compelling. She almost regretted the simple fact that it would need to break in one way or another. Maybe she would have the opportunity to capture visual footage before her senior went too deep into the process.

The morning had gone well. Mariah had observed while her senior used his resonance like a scalpel to pry at the specimen’s consciousness. She remembered this from a training film she’d been forced to watch on her first day as a Research Assistant. The first vivisection of a heaven-angel always had to be mental. A specimen needed to be removed from its own thoughts and emotions before the appropriate manner of celestial breakdown could be determined. They made good progress, and Mariah had already filled two full pages of with shorthand notes when her senior finally called for a break.

“I’ll be back in an hour.” He said in a friendlier tone than usual. That was another sign the morning had gone well. “Want anything from the snack bar?”

Mariah shook her head. Celestial forms never actually needed food or drink, and the opportunity to observe a Heaven-angel directly was already so rare; she didn’t want to waste it.

“Then make sure you get the equipment set up for this afternoon.” Her senior gave a jaunty wave and disappeared into the hallway. The door closed behind him, leaving Mariah alone in the room with the specimen.

She set herself to work. The list of requested equipment was right there on the clipboard, and one of the interns had already brought them into the lab prior to the morning session. All that was left for Mariah to do was the assembly.

“Please…” The voice from the box was barely audible.

Mariah was surprised. It was stronger than her initial impressions thought it would be. Most specimens undergoing this procedure were nowhere near coherent by this point. She grabbed the clipboard and prepared to make a note. “Please, what?”

“Help me…let me…go home….”

Or perhaps, the specimen was weak after all. Or it thought Mariah was weak. And Mariah could not let that stand.

Divine whim told Mariah what to do. She set out a deep instinctual sadness, a regret that the specimen would even think about asking Mariah to betray her Lab and her Archangel. The specimen would regret—

It bounced the resonance. That happened occasionally, and Mariah had that split second to decide how to handle the incoming backlash. Swallow the emotion and let herself ride it through. Her senior would understand. But the specimen…the specimen would think her weak. It might try asking again, and under the heavy blanket of sorrow, Mariah might just give in.

No, she had to cast the emotion aside and take the dissonance. It shouldn’t be a big deal. Plenty of people occasionally carried a note or two when their resonance bounced or—for the Impudites—when a human soul in its presence had been accidentally disassembled ahead of schedule. A note of Dissonance could be handled with leave time and volunteer work. That might not be so bad, Mariah thought, to give her seldom used vessel a spin and do some work at the bottom locus of an affiliated tether.

Having made her choice, Mariah let the emotion dissolve and waited for that faint and irritating buzz to start. It didn’t.

Wait. It didn’t?

A sense of dread rose in her. She looked down. The lab coat covered most of her arms, but the sight of exposed hands told her the problem. The dissonance had become Discord. Murky patches spread under her skin and nails. It reminded Mariah of a fungal infection she had seen a few months ago while assisting a researcher in the Plague department.

Discordant? How? She’d only had the one note.

That could happen sometimes with bad enough luck. Yes, that had been it. Bad luck.

The specimen would pay for that. It would be sorry that it had ever tried to—

Except her resonance seized as she tried to invoke it. That specimen—no, that Kyriotate—was already suffering enough, would continue to suffer until they either died or Fell. Suddenly, Mariah couldn’t bear to add to that. She couldn’t set it free—didn’t want to, really—but her new Discord drew a bright clear line right at resonating and nothing but Mariah’s own will and essence on top of that would let her step over it.

What Mariah should have done was continue to set up the equipment for the next stages. Check the lines for the neurotoxin pumps. Set out the blades. Double check that the electrodes were dry and functional. Her Discord didn’t prevent any of those actions, never mind how much more suffering those could inflict compared to a trivial emotion that could burn itself out in a few minutes. She should have smoothed her expression into a semblance of calm before her senior returned and acted like nothing had happened. It wouldn’t have prevented her new Discord from being discovered, but it would have let the session go on as normal.

But she hadn’t.

Mariah had still been standing around in shock when her senior returned from his break. Stupid. The equipment wasn’t set up, and the nearly broken specimen had regressed towards coherence. Mariah couldn’t hide that something had gone terribly wrong in his absence.

Her senior’s eyes grew suddenly cold. And Mariah realized, this was what it felt like to be judged by a Habbalite and found weak. Any hopes that the afternoon would continue on were instantly dashed. He grabbed her by the wrist, fingers nearly bruising her celestial form. The trip to the Lab Director’s office managed to be both too long and too short.

Her senior didn’t even bother to knock. Just walked right in. Mariah gulped. This was the most trouble she had ever been in, in all eight years of her existence.

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” The Lab Director snapped. She didn’t even look up from her paperwork.

“Sorry for the bother, doctor.” her senior was perfectly amicable and polite, never mind the pressure on Mariah’s wrist, and the blazing crimson of her mood ring. “I’ll need a new assistant. This one had a bit of an incident this morning.”

The Lab Director looked up, her expression suddenly businesslike. “I see. Put in the replacement request the usual way. I’ll debrief this one. Depending on how this goes, you’ll either get it or not.”

Her senior—former senior—glared at Mariah as though to say, “Don’t fuck this up for me anymore than you already have,” and left.

The Lab Director turned her gaze towards Mariah, and her tone was suddenly friendly. “Tell me what happened, sweetheart.”

Deep down, Mariah knew she should be more afraid than she felt. This was not, could not be good for her. She was clearly in trouble. But the Lab Director was an Impudite, and when she smiled her brilliant, charming smile, Mariah felt—not like this hadn’t been a disaster, but like the Lab Director was on her side. Discord was not quite as common as dissonance, but it happened sometimes. A run of bad luck and no upcoming leave time sometimes left taking Discord as the only option. It wasn’t a fireable offense in and of itself. Demotable, maybe, depending on the nature of the Discord.

Mariah would explain the incident and the effects of the resulting Discord, the mistake she had made leading up to it and how she would do better in the future. If she cooperated, the Lab Director would probably put her on some kind of punishment work, and Mariah would work hard-enough and well-enough at that to eventually get enough credit that her Archangel would remove this blemish on her soul. It might take a few years, and that was a long time for a celestial Mariah’s age, but it wasn’t forever. She could recover.

How naive she had been. Some Discords apparently did merit instant termination.

—

The next day, she had been brought to the Central Lab to meet with the Genius Archangel himself.

Mariah had not been looking forward to the appointment, even less so when she learned it would be held in an examination room.

“Come in, come in.” Her Archangel was amicable when she showed up to the door accompanied by a surly Djinn. Mariah could almost believe everything would be fine. She was only brought to this place to have her Discord removed and examined. It was an unusual Discord after all.

If Mariah were a Balseraph, maybe she could make herself believe that.

No. That was the thought process of a weakling. She knew what was coming, and she would face it head on. Mariah fixed a blank expression on her face, and let the Djinn walk her over to the examination table.

“Let’s make her comfortable for the coming discussion.”

The Djinn pushed her down on to the examination chair with one monstrous paw, and another assistant—a fellow Punisher—tightened the straps. Two for each of her arms and legs, and two across her torso, as though Mariah would try to escape her Archangel.

The Genius Archangel merely observed this set up and only spoke again when she was properly fastened in. “This is your first slip up, Mariah. Even Angels make mistakes, even those of our own choir. However, it’s an established fact that your Discord renders you useless for your current research trajectory.”

The voice might have been soothing, but the Choir resonance that accompanied it spoke of terror and remorse. Those emotions rose in Mariah to a degree that the straps were a gift or else she might curl up and cry in the corner. Tartarus had plenty of uses for the weak, none of them pleasant, and Mariah couldn’t deny it. She had been weak with that Kyriotate. She couldn’t even make the promise to do better next time because how that blessed Discord bound her. She was useless now. She deserved to be the subject of her Archangel’s next experiment, no matter how painful. She should be grateful, even, that she could be of any use to him at all.

Still, she flinched when his fingers dragged along the wire running alongside her jawbone.

“I had such high expectations for you. And now…” He gave a little tut. “What a waste of your training.” A pair of calipers touched her head, temple to temple, and the terror dropped to the pit of her stomach. “Fortunately for you, there’s a job opening at one of our test-subject procurement centers. It’ll even include some corporeal work. You were requesting a corporeal post for your next assignment, yes?”

Mariah nodded. “I would be happy to take this new job.” She didn’t even need to hear what it was. Anything to survive this meeting and prove herself again was good enough.

“Good. Then, we can hold off on the extensive experimentation until your next failure.”

He gave her a second of a relief. It lasted just long enough for Mariah to wonder if he might command his assistant to release her, no experiments done. No. She wouldn’t be that lucky. The next wave of resonance hit again. Fear and desperate love mixed together. She would do anything for her Archangel to make up for failing him so badly, if only he would let her try.

“However, since you’re here, it would be a waste to let you leave without indulging in a bit of scientific inquiry.”

Mariah willed herself to not flinch. She could survive a little pain. She was an angel, and she would remain strong in front of her Archangel.

“Your forces were put together with your previous job in mind, leaving only the one Corporeal force required to animate your vessel. That’s not quite enough. So in consideration of your most recent failure and the resulting position change, we are going to perform just one little experiment. If it all goes well, you’ll walk away from this more suited for your new duty.”

Her face remained steady, but her hands shook.

“And if not…we can consider that your next failure. Either way, we’ll all learn a lesson about the separate nature of Forces and how to turn one kind of Force into another.”

Mariah gulped. Her fingers gripped the arms of the chairs. Those weak, useless and soft appendages couldn’t quite dig in enough to steady her and she would fix that the next opportunity she had to update her celestial form. That was her last coherent thought. Then the procedure started, and, for a little while at least, Mariah completely forgot about how weak she must have appeared to her Archangel.

Pain could do that, even to angels.

—

The Genius Archangel had no time for her once the Science was completed. He left the room immediately, still strapped down and barely sewn back together. It was one of his lab assistants, a fellow Horror, who came back and unbound Mariah from the chair some hours later and escorted her to her new workplace.

She spent the trip feeling for what had been lost.

Intellectually, she knew the procedure had not diminished her. Eight Forces before, eight Forces after. But the Celestial part of her, built see the emotions of the weak and to instruct them how to feel, felt wispy and hollow. No longer was it just the Discord shackling her, but her own capabilities as well. The mood ring on her finger showed her escort’s contempt for her. Stories would get around, and if not the full story, then the Discord itself remained a stain on her celestial body. It would be obvious to anyone in the know.

Could she hide it? Could she modify her body somehow to make the Discords’ effects look like a choice? Was this a test, to see if she could not just persevere but overcome her situation?

The other Habbalite dragged her into a new building, not quite on the outside borders of Tartarus, but less central than her previous lab. No, not a lab, more like an office building that did public outreach on its lowest floor. The lab assistant took Mariah up an elevator and spoke with a receptionist about something involving security clearances. They waited a bit until Mariah could be passed off to another Habbalite. This one escorted her up a flight of stairs and into an office where a Djinn who looked like a hybrid of a ragged, drenched owl and a warty toad waited for them.

Waited might have been a strong word, as the Djinn didn’t even look up.

Her latest escort pushed Mariah hard enough that she stumbled to remain on her feet. “Your new assistant. Let’s hope this one lasts longer than the previous few.”

He turned to Mariah. “Your new boss, Tizzy.”

Then he left without another word or even a hit of resonance.

Mariah expected some sort of reaction when the Djinn finally glanced up at her—a question or an order or even a threat, but the Djinn, Tizzy, just shrugged her wings and croaked noncommittally, obviously more concerned with her current task than a new assistant. The mood ring said…apathetic. A pen dragged across a page in a book, white squares on a black background while the Djinn muttered. “Eight letters—Empty Calories for Haagenti.”

Everything went quiet, and Mariah wondered if she should speak. “Oblivion?”

Tizzy looked up and really looked at Mariah for the first time. The Djinn’s eyes were dull and enormous—too big for the face. A mouth that didn’t know what it wanted to be—beak or lips—clicked down. “Do not. Spoil. The crossword.” Then, Tizzy hunched over the crossword again, all thoughts of her new assistant seemingly forgotten.

Mariah wondered if she should do something. Move. Look around. Leave her new supervisor to the puzzle and explore her new workplace, maybe find someone with a little initiative who could just tell her what her job was. Pleasant wasn’t expected, but just waiting for the exact sub-type of unpleasant was getting old. Boring. Even delivering coffee would be an improvement.

She settled for looking at the bookshelves while Tizzy muttered another clue to herself (Lucifer’s favorite fashion house, 5 letters). At least half of the books looked like completed volumes of puzzle books. Most of the rest were references for engineering, electronics, and artifact design, nothing that Mariah would have considered useful in her old job. Her eyes went to a volume bound in gray-purple letter, the script on the spine not in any kind of Helltongue but actual angelic script. She reached out to take it for a closer look. Her finger almost hooked the ridge of the spine, ready to pull it—

That caught the Djinn’s attention. A webbed hand grabbed her wrist. Talons dug into her skin. “Don’t touch anything. Stand in front of the desk and wait for orders.”

So Mariah stood in the designated spot, and observed the office. It was half modern lab office and half a direct export of Kronos’s archive with all the bookshelves and filing cabinets. At the far end was a heavy-looking door with a keypad and an actual warning sign. Entering without the proper codes is lethal. A window beside it on the same wall looked deeper into a brightly lit hallway, and when she observed an Impudite rearranging his hair, Mariah realized it was one of those one-way windows like the ones in the some of the observation rooms at her previous lab. To the side was a door with a key hanging beside it. A supply closet, based on the placard next to it.

It was hours before Tizzy deigned speak to her again.

“I suppose you need to know what you’re going to be doing.” Tizzy spoke like this was a burden upon her Djinnish shoulders, never mind that she had requested the new assistant.

Mariah nodded.

Tizzy pushed forward a black zippered pouch. “Capture at least one Kyriotate specimen within the next corporeal year and return it to me. Any questions?”

Mariah unzipped the pouch and saw a number of crystals wrapped with wires and threaded onto chains—Force Catchers—and realized how dangerous this new assignment could get.

“What’s the best way to—”

Tizzy cut her off. “If you survive, we’ll discuss further training. Do you understand?”

“Yes ma’am,” Mariah said, and did not bother to point out that the Djinn had asked for questions. If it was unfair to be cut off, that was simply how this new job would work. Mariah may not have had a clue how about to accomplish her latest task, but she understood so much more about reality than she had even two days ago.

This was a test. She would survive. She would be strong. She would overcome, and if she couldn’t impress this Djinn, she would find someone else to impress. Favored or not, Mariah was still one of God’s Chosen in Hell after all.

She kept chanting that to herself until she could believe it.

Chapter 16: Raye expands her definition of host.

Chapter Text

When Mariah finishes telling us her story, she goes back to her keyboard and restarts her short bursts of typing. Our reaction doesn’t seem to interest her at all. Not that she’s willing to show at least.

This is for the best, when most of our minds want to focus on puzzling out what truths she’s told us, what lies she’s told us, and what she hasn’t told us at all. Certainly it means we have more scraps to incorporate into our mental collage.

What she’s told us: That she was once the best intern at a prestigious lab. Some very lurid descriptions of a captured and soon-to-be vivisected (Mariah cares about the difference between vivisection and dissection) Kyriotate that we would prefer not to consider too deeply. A very glossed-over description of an incident that resulted in an inconvenient resonance-breaking Discord (not broken enough, in our informed opinion) leading to the resulting demotion and reassignment here to serve as the Damp Mop Djinn’s assistant.

What she hasn’t told us but might if we asked: What happened to that Kyriotate. We’ve chosen not to ask. There’s enough for our minds to not think about without adding that to the list.

What she hasn’t told us, won’t tell us because she’s a Habbalite, but that we’ve picked up on anyway: The whole process hurt. The cut off from her resonance. Her sudden fall from promising young researcher to disposable tool. The resulting social upheaval. She elided over what happened with her Prince (not Archangel), but her voice cracked on the one sentence mentioning him. Just a little bit. If sounds weren’t all we have, we might not have caught it.

Our conclusion: This fucked-up little Habbie needs help. Our help, specifically.

—

“Another quota?” we ask when we start hearing the characteristic sounds of Mariah preparing for another trip to the Corporeal.

There’s a short pause and fabric-rustling sounds as Mariah exchanges one outfit for another. “It’s an emergency trip,” she says at last. “Tizzy was yelling about it. Apparently someone—” She cuts off. We [the two of us] seem to have reached an unspoken mutual agreement. Mariah doesn’t get too detailed about the work she does to capture our Choirmates or the eventual fates said Choirmates come to once down in Hell (worse than this, we’re assured), and we don’t get too hostile at Mariah about an assignment she has little to no choice about.

In return, we retain amicability and Mariah continues not to turn us over to an unpleasant demise. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. Symbiosis, if you will.

(We can feel our minds starting an argument in the background. Amongst Kyriotates, ‘symbiosis’ is one of those words with implications.)

“Anyway,” Mariah continues, “I’ll be gone for a bit.” We hear the sounds of drawer and cabinet locks engaging, starting from near the door and ending right next to us. Yes, they will be broken in a matter of days as Mariah coworkers start their traditional scavenging, but she locks everything down anyway.

Usually, here is where Mariah would give us one last resonance hit, and leave.

There’s another step this time. “What station?”

“Huh?”

“For the radio. What station do you want?” We hear a click and some radio static. “To keep you entertained.”

We consider this. Entertained? No. Slightly less bored? Maybe. “How about Disco?”

Mariah sighs, but the static resolves into actual music. “You have strange tastes.”

(We don’t get people’s weird grudges against the genre. It’s just dance music. What’s wrong with that?)

We wait for the final step of her ritual where Mariah burns all the Essence she can afford into resonating us. It takes a while and deep breath on Mariah’s part, but the Essence does go, and what she fills us with is worry. It’s a low-grade emotion and thus, it will gnaw at us for days.

Yeah, Mariah’s resonance might be broken, but it’s certainly not broken enough.

—

The DJs in Hell are beyond obnoxious and have a nasty habit of cutting off songs in the middle of the final chorus, but the music does, in fact, help with the boredom. This doesn’t make our time alone actually fun, but the radio keeps us occupied while we wait to implement the observation phase of our newly decided upon strategy.

DJ Magic Mik has started and ended its morning show (Hell may not have mornings, but Media sure as hell doesn’t let that stop it from having morning shows) about three or four times when the first scavenger comes in. It’s a Shedite by sound, and it’s here alone, which is typical for demons who aren’t looking for an opportunity to scheme privately. We can hear it stick and peel across the floor, and then open one of Mariah’s locked cabinets. It must have been here before, as it seems to have found what it was looking for first try.

A set of demonlings come in next, just after Magic Mik signs off and Galdreth the Slobbering and its sidekick Fluffy take over. It’s a flock of three this time, which is a typical number for these groupings. These specific ones either haven’t mastered the art of undoing locks, or they’re just here for the easy rewards (a pack of sticky notes and few thumbtacks that Mariah apparently left out) before they leave. We make a note, even if we don’t see much significance in tracking them.

The observation stage of our strategy looks very much like what we’re accustomed to doing in that we must remain very silent, but it’s a strategy nonetheless. It’s probably a better (and safer!) use of our time than practicing echolocation.

(We still do, just only when we can be sure the room is empty.)

A few DJ Magic Miks later, the door opens again. On the radio, Chantal the Commercial Chanteuse performs the jingles for the hourly sponsors. The one for the carpet company is obnoxiously catchy, never mind that we don’t have any sort of home here, nor would carpeting here help our situation. For one thing, it would dampen the sound.

Still, we find ourself trying not to hum along.

(A side effect of all this radio play: A rapidly growing grudge against the Media.)

What comes in is a set of demons this time, the better to overhear actual chatter. The specific content of their conversation isn’t worth paying close attention to. Their petty schemes aren’t immediately alarming. We do note identifying details: their audible motion, their location as they open and close drawers, names or details associated with their side projects.

(We do our very, very best to not provide commentary on said projects. At least, not out loud. For example, as something of an expert in how bodies are formed and fit together, there are some places in a vessel where high-powered proton beams really, really should not be implanted.)

We also note when they talk about the items they’ve found, be it an extra screwdriver or a pile of bolts or a set of calipers. We may not know exactly what a digital transistor or a flux capacitor is nor could we identify them by sight or sound, but we can remember that they were searched for and possibly taken.

It almost reminds us some of the work we did back when we were on the corporeal and able to roam freely: Find a specific human and help them with a practical aspect of their life. Back then, our purpose was to give them the space and assistance they needed to focus on a creative endeavor. This time, we have a more pragmatic goal in mind.

This goes on for a while. Various solos, pairs, and flocks come in, rummage around, and leave again.

Eventually, the radio suddenly goes silent in the middle of a Helltongue cover of Dancing Queen. There’s one demon in the room who moves with actual footsteps and no other identifying sounds. We spend a minute wondering what happened. Did they just turn the radio off for some reason? Did they steal the radio itself or some major component? Did they somehow manage to set off an extremely localized EMP that took out just the radio? (We can still hear the computer humming in the background) Any of those are possible, given our available information. Not that it matters, the effect is the same in the end.

Bye bye, DJ Magic Mik. We will miss your timekeeping. We will not, however, miss you.

—

“I’m back.”

It’s been a relatively short trip. Only one message from mother came in before Mariah’s return. Emergency run indeed. We (briefly and vaguely) wonder how many more Kyriotates are now missing and who, if anyone, will miss them.

(We can’t think of that too deeply.)

“You’re back,” we say, as is now our traditional greeting. We could almost say “Welcome back” and mean it, but wouldn’t that just make her suspicious?

We already plan to introduce her to a new behavior today, and from there a new concept. It’s probably best to take things slow.

What follows are the traditional noises of Mariah’s return. She unlocks the few places still locked and changes out of her heavy, wet clothing and into something (presumably) clean and dry. The long silent pauses after might indicate that Mariah is observing her surroundings and taking mental inventory of what’s gone missing in her absence. We imagine it does, anyway. Imagination not being a substitute for actionable evidence, the relevant mind waits to see what she says.

The most obvious bit of information. The radio is off.

“Of course they took the power supply.” Mariah sounds mostly resigned to this as she puts the radio back into place. “I tried building anti-theft drones early on. Of course, the first time I left, someone salvaged those for parts too.”

“Why not booby traps?” we ask. If there’s one security protocol Creation and Technology have in common, it’s an appreciation for ingenious traps.

Mariah sighs. “I tried that once. Turns out, it’s against company policy to set traps in what is still technically an employee supply room. Even on a cupboard designated for personal belongings. I wish you could do something to stop them.”

We [Mariah and I both] know that’s impossible. We [I] don’t even try to justify our inaction.

“I know, I know, security concerns.” Mariah fills in the silence with our exact reason. “Getting caught is bad for both of us, but if I could come back and have at least something in the place where I left it…”

Of course, we can’t help Mariah with that exactly. That’s why we implemented our other plan.

When we hear her scrounging through a cupboard, on the same wall as us, near the door, we check our mental reference.

“Balseraph. Works on proton-beam implant technology in his spare time.”

Then, we hear Mariah open a drawer on the opposite side near the middle of the room.

“Shedite. Something about genetic engineering and carnivorous plants.”

Her next stop is a lower cupboard, almost directly across from our corner.

“Are you looking for the calipers? If so, it’s the Habbalite that sounds like a wind chime with all the piercings. If not…maybe a Shedite again? Not the carnivorous plant one, a different one. I heard it mutter something about its prototype for the Lightsaber Expo.”

Mariah stands up and walks over. We hear the wobble of a notepad being picked up, and the slide of a writing instrument. “Huh. You little eavesdropper.”

No, we can’t hear her thinking, but we can hear her taking notes. Her pencil is too hard for the paper. “What else can you recall?”

“Mostly demonlings taking office supplies. Sticky notes and the like.”

Mariah writes some more, and when the writing stops, there’s no more noise except the slow tap of a shoe against the floor. We picture her looking at the compiled information. Is she merely planning her retrieval operation? Or will she reach the deeper conclusion we’ve set her up to find? Despite her delusions of divinity and bad career choices, we know Mariah isn’t stupid. She’s exactly as smart as we are, we think, and even smarter than us within her area of focus.

Part of her focus right now is monitoring the behavior of her pet Kyriotate. Or, it should be anyway. With demons, there’s not much of an overlap between ‘should’ and ‘is’.

Mariah should notice that our behavior is new. This is the first time we’ve demonstrated the use of our listening abilities for surveillance as well as communication. Certainly, this the first time we’ve cooperated with her in a matter beyond our mutual interest of not-getting-caught. New actions should make her suspicious. Doubly so, because it’s Hell. Triply so, because we’re her captive. Quadruply so, because there’s no visible benefit to us.

“Why are you doing this?” Mariah asks. “It’s not going to get you anything.”

The next step of the plan is one we can’t easily back away from once taken. As such, we’ve debated the will-we-won’t-we of the matter throughout Mariah’s whole absence. We reached a rough consensus, though the conclusion remained far from unanimous. We brace ourself, metaphorically, to see if Mariah will accept the concept we’re about to propose to her.

“It’s a Kyriotate thing,” we say, with zero apologies in our main voice, “We’re naturally inclined to be helpful to our hosts. And since no actual hosts are available—this being Hell and all—you’re the closest substitute we have.”

This time, when Mariah goes silent, we feel like holding a breath (despite being at least two removes away from needing to breathe). It’s like the moment before pulling up a carved block and seeing the first print. Will the result be beautiful or a disaster? Probably the second. But if it is a disaster, maybe it’s one that can be fixed with careful work.

“Do you really think of me like one of your hosts?” Mariah asks, not quite accusing yet.

This is where the practice in Helltongue has helped us. We still find figures of speech in the infernal language slippery, but so long as the premises are solid and the conclusion sincerely meant, we feel safe enough from dissonance to answer. “In a manner of speaking, you are hosting me, even if this is Hell and your vessel isn’t directly involved. So, it makes for a useful metaphor.”

Mariah slowly taps that pencil on her pad of paper. There’s no rhythm to it that we can hear. Perhaps it reflects the thoughts in her head. We hear her pacing across the room with her Habbie feet, Djinn shuffle variety. The silence stretches out.

“Kira, do you really believe I’m so weak and broken that I need a Kyriotate’s help?” This time her tone is definitely accusatory.

But the question must be for herself because Mariah stomps out of the room without giving us an opportunity to answer.

Okay, so this is likely a disaster. What can we do to fix it?

—

The closer we [Mariah and I] get to symbiosis in our social interactions, the more a Kyriotate-host analogy makes sense to us.

Sure, the hosting would be metaphorical only, and we’re not literally sliding our forces into Mariah and sending her mind out to the Marches, but the benefits and trade-offs are similar to what we find with an actual hosting situation. Mariah can do things and go places we can’t. We can give her assistance and perspectives she can’t access otherwise. It’s an honest proposal that offers Mariah exactly what we’re willing to give her.

But all honesty in Hell is a gamble. We knew we were taking a risk to speak about it so openly.

Calling Mariah a host pins down what is otherwise a messy and complicated relationship. It’s neither friendship nor is it entirely adversarial. It implies a duty towards Mariah without subservience. It allows us room to guide Mariah’s behavior without entirely co-opting free will. It implies that we consider her well-being important even if (and we plan to keep this part deliberately silent for as long as possible) we also mean to guide her towards the biggest risk she will ever take.

No, we’re not being entirely altruistic here.

Furthermore, a Kyriotate-host relationship is inherently asymmetrical, and—ethical codes and dissonance conditions aside—the power dynamic rarely favors the host. We [me, but also Kyriotates in general] are able to assist our hosts so well is because we do generally have more forces. Or we have access to abilities not given to corporeal-bound beings. Or even just because after a decade or two, we can accumulate more corporeal experience than most mortals could ever hope to have, once we count our time in multiple bodies.

A Habbalite like Mariah could easily see our open approach to a Kyriotate-host relationship as an implication of weakness, which is near the top of the list for Habbalah pet peeves. And Mariah—bent as she is—absolutely fits that stereotype.

We don’t blame Mariah for being angry. We’re more surprised, actually, that she took the time to think it through first.

—

The door code beeps, and Mariah’s footsteps stomp back in. A whole bunch of items clatter down unceremoniously on a distant counter (computer side of the room, closer to the door than to us). Drawers and cabinet doors open and slam shut in turn. We can tell by location, she’s returning the stolen components to their usual spots.

The time away might have done nothing to calm Mariah’s frenzy (or is it Frenzy?), but she’s clearly willing to put our information to use.

The plurality of us are optimists and choose to see this as a good sign.

The minority hear the intermittent pacing and the sub-verbal mutters that she tries to hide from us, and those remind the optimists not to get too hopeful. We wonder if she’s just now realized how closely we listen to her.

We resolve not to speak until she does.

“Well?” Mariah addresses us at last. She sounds calmer now, so maybe it was a case of the capital ‘F’ Frenzies and not her own emotions.

“Well, what?”

“Do you think I’m really so weak that I need to be a Kyriotate’s host?”

We see the needle we need to thread, a narrow conversational path through a small opening that maybe, maybe gets us the outcome we want.

“It’s not about strength or weakness,” we say, because it’s true. “It’s about mutual benefit. You’re gone for months at a time, and when you’re out people come in here for many reasons. To steal things, to gossip, to make petty schemes where they don’t think anyone will find out about it. You can benefit from that information.”

“So, what do you get out of it, if it’s about mutual benefit?”

This is the line that rides on the edge of dissonance—not quite stepping over, but close enough that some forces start to feel uneasy. “It’s something I can do for however long I’m here.”

(Another, mostly-selfish reason we like the Kyriotate-host analogy: it implies our relationship with Mariah is temporary. Even our longer-term host relationships have to end, eventually. Hazel moved to France. Charlie found a home with humans ready to pamper him. Sylvia’s children graduated and moved out. If Mariah becomes another kind of host, our time with her will surely end as well.)

(Right?)

Mariah hasn’t responded to that yet, so we take this opportunity to continue. “It’s in our nature to want to help. Kyriotates, I mean. The hosts we take, all of our viewpoints and bodies, what are they for, if not to help someone who can make use of it?”

“I told you, I’m not weak—”

We choose to interrupt before Mariah storms back out in another one of her tantrums. “Helping you out is half of it. The other half is: we interact with our world through our hosts. You, Mariah, have more freedom to act here than we do. You have more context about this place. The more of your abilities you share with us, the more use we’ll be to you.”

There. That’s the core of our offer—or the version of it we’re willing to volunteer. A quid pro quo. We scratch her back; she grooms our butterflies.

It’s still not a unanimous decision. Some of us are doing grimly smug I-told-you-sos at the rest of us as Mariah hesitates. Others still don’t think this Habbie deserves our consideration. If she gets burnt out and soul-killed, well, that will teach her that playing stupid games wins her stupid prizes.

(Although, we can’t remember the last time we refused to help someone who could use it simply because they didn’t deserve our assistance. Maybe the help we were willing to give wasn’t the exact help they wanted, but we still did it and left them better off.)

However, the plurality won. Enough of us saw this as our best possible approach to override the very legitimate objections of the others. Is it a safe approach? Not at all, but what would be down here? It’s the one most likely to achieve the result we want. And, some of us look (metaphorically) at Mariah and see (again, metaphorically) a demon who doesn’t quite deserve Hell—at least not her specific position within it—and doesn’t quite fit in either. Those ones do sincerely believe Mariah would be a happier person if she came up and not just better one.

The longer Mariah stays silent, the more deeply aware we are of how easy it is for our so-called best possible approach to end badly.

“You do pity me, don’t you?” Mariah says. Her voice is cross, but she sits down in front of us. Her nails click against the edges of our case. The taps are slow and hard—angry, but also thoughtful. “You shouldn’t. I’m stronger than you are, and your fate is still in my hands. I could just pass you over to Tizzy at anytime or leave you somewhere for a colleague to find. Boom. Game over. You end up as a dead specimen like every other one I capture. No matter what you say, I’m the one in control of this situation.”

We actually don’t say anything. We don’t need to. Nothing in Mariah’s words sounds like refusal. She wants to accept our proposition. Her rant now, that’s all about re-framing our words into a context her Habbie pride will let her accept.

“But,” Mariah reaches her conclusion at last, “if it motivates you to be less useless, I suppose I can play host for you.”

Good. That’s all we can hope for from her right now.

Chapter 17: Raye observes a cultural practice of Habbalah up close.

Notes:

Warning for this chapter regarding that 'Mild Body Horror' tag.

Chapter Text

Mariah has been less-than-talkative since she verbally accepted our offer of a metaphorical Kyriotate-host relationship—not in an angry sense like she has been before, just distracted. We hear the noise of her pencil—too hard and scratchy for our preferences, a 4H where an HB would draw more smoothly without sacrificing precision, going across thin paper.

“What are you doing?” We ask.

“Not now.” If she makes an accompanying gesture, she doesn’t do it audibly. Communication with us is not her priority.

We’ve never heard her like this, not even the time the Damp Mop Djinn brought in three large boxes of somethings to repair and told Mariah to have them ready by the next day. This is a deeper focus, the sort of flow we normally love to see in our hosts where it’s a sign that the little gestures and adjustments we’ve made have taken root. With Mariah, our feelings are more complicated. We don’t know what (or if) we encouraged in her, but with a Punisher, we are reasonably sure the end result won’t be pleasant.

We tune into those pencil scratches. They don’t sound like writing. We’ve heard her write a couple times, all short strokes and quick, sharp motions, these marks take longer to make, and sound smoother, at least until we hear her start erasing. Mark-making. Mark-reduction. Rinse and repeat until Mariah suddenly pauses.

We recognize the process, even by sound, from our previous life. Mariah is drawing out plans to make something. That’s good, right?

We should be encouraging this, right? We are Creation after all.

“Measurements. Can’t do this without measurements.” Mariah says authoritatively, to herself, mostly.

“Measurements for what?”

Mariah ignores us. No, she’s not ignoring us; she simply doesn’t bother to answer. We hear her hands make contact with the box. We hear the interaction of mechanical pieces we can neither name nor visualize. Buttons press, gears shift, and the sound of ambient noise gets slightly louder like the barrier between us and the rest of existence has fallen, at least temporarily. Then, there’s more scratching (writing, this time) on her paper.

Oh, she’s measuring us.

Our curiosity moves from idle interest to paranoia. There is, based on a calculation we just made up, a 93.2 percent chance of this hurting. We [most of our minds] re-evaluate whether we should encourage this.

“Mariah? Why are you measuring us?”

The ambient noise fades back to its usual level as Mariah locks the case up again. “I told you. I’m the one in control. You’ll find out when you need to find out.” She pauses, and starts again, sounding very much like a snotty teenager. “Or, when you can figure it out.”

Her answer does not soothe our worries one bit. But, hey, at least she answered us this time.

—

Mariah’s work continues, intermittently interrupted by the Damp Mop Djinn and a seemingly endless list of chores. Fix this. Type that. Arrange catering for the Interpersonal Robotics Seminar. Shred these documents.

We don’t know if the Damp Mop Djinn deliberately piles extra chores on Mariah now that she seems engrossed in a project or if it just happens to be a busy time here. Based on reputation, we could easily see the former being the case, even if the latter is more likely.

(Hell runs on deliberate malice, that we’ve observed. It also runs on powerful demons paying little mind to the condition of their underlings, especially when other deadlines loom.)

But at some point, Mariah’s design process does reach its conclusion. She pushes her chair back and gets up with a little hop that could almost be adorable were it not also ominous. Her hands clap down on the table.

“I’ll need to go on a supply run!”

Cabinets and drawers open and close.

“I wonder if I can get away with solder, or if I have to braze. If I can get a hold of the right kind of torch…I think Siya has one…and a cutting tool at least. At least no one took my drill…”

Occasionally, Mariah makes pencil scratches on her paper. Inventory? Writing down a list of components to salvage? Considering the pros and cons of soldering versus brazing?

“Be right back.” Mariah rushes out of the room, oddly spirited.

Whatever she’s designed, she must be eager to make it.

—

Mariah returns with a crate full of jangling things and approximately the same level of eager energy as before. No, she still doesn’t bother to tell us what’s going on—or even speak to us, in general. But she does the turn on the radio, and the background noise prevents the room from being too silent. It’s the Techsynth station by the way, so we’re unsure if this is an improvement. (It’s probably preferable to the Disco station though. The ‘music’ might be worse, but its lack of morning shows or demonically catchy jingles makes up for a lot.)

She get back into her flow, and we’re left to figure out what she could possibly be building.

There’s an obvious answer, of course, but Mariah is a Vapulan, and Vapulans are almost as bad as going at with the obvious answers as Creationers are. So, there’s an unlikely but not entirely non-existent chance that she’s building a super-charged prism that’ll burn this place down the first time she shines a light through it. Or maybe a gun that shoots radioactive silicate projectiles. Or I don’t know, she’s formulating the chemical composition of a new pigment derived from the dust of ground-up force catchers.

We entertain ourself with speculation before moving on to contemplate the mundane and obvious possibility: Mariah is designing a new cage for us. What other reason would she have to take our [the crystal we’re trapped in’s] measurements?

Oh, plenty of others for sure. Maybe she just wants a nice necklace. We’ve seen some jewelry-making processes that, with a little more recklessness, could qualify as Technological enough for any Vapulan. It might explain the need for soldering supplies.

But where would she wear it? Everyone knows Mariah works with force catchers. Wearing one openly would catch attention, and not the good kind. And that’s assuming no one can tell the difference between a filled and empty catcher.

Anyway, a new cage is the likeliest possibility. The problem with that conclusion is: We can’t figure out why Mariah would feel the need to design that. We haven’t attempted to escape. Other people haven’t become more curious over what they have by now written off as just a personal item. And if Mariah were the type to tinker around with a previous project for no reason whatsoever, she would have already made modifications before this point. And she hasn’t until now.

Until we made the host comparison and—

Oh!

(She’s a Habbalite, Raye, what did we expect?)

Oh.

(Of course, the answer is obvious when we look at it from that angle.)

Oh, fuck.

(We hope we’re wrong. Please let us be wrong.)

(We are probably not wrong.)

One thing we’ll say about Mariah, she certainly commits to a concept.

—

We’ll admit this, we were never the most attentive student in our classes, at least not when the subject seemed mostly-irrelevant, which, for a Kyriotate-to-be like we were at the time, included any information on demons more in-depth than “Here’s how to quickly identify the kinds of demons you’re most likely meet on the corporeal, here’s how their resonance can fuck you up if you get too close, and here’s how to successfully avoid them.”

(Kyriotates—and future Kyriotates—not scheduled to obtain their own vessels do not get placed in the demon-hunting classes. The Advanced Aerial Surveillance course usually covers the level of demon-tracking us civilians need to know. At least it did when we took it.)

We do remember that a relevant lecture existed. We even attended it. Part of the basic education on demons included guest lectures by those who had recently redeemed. We remember the Elohite who came to class that day, not even a decade out of Hell, and who had (presumably, still has) striking amber-colored eyes. The content of the lecture itself? That we remember only vaguely. We were too busy drawing everyone’s wings and the backs of their heads to really catch too much of the details.

(This was before we fledged and mastered the concept of multi-tasking.)

Mariah has gone silent again. Still no talking. No more sketching. No more building. The radio, however, still blares out its noise and at full-volume now. On the corporeal, we would start to wonder about hearing damage.

Anyway, one of the topics we vaguely remember being covered in that lecture was the very peculiar Habbie habit of celestial body modification. Not that celestials of all types don’t decorate their true forms. We do, some more than others. And not just clothing, but also piercings and tattoos. We remember our mother used to get henna painted on her scales before the artist who assisted her moved service into Fire. Habbalah, however, are unique in how far they traditionally take that concept.

We have to strain to pay attention to anything beyond the music, for example, the sounds of items being set down on the table in front of us and plugged into a power source.

For Habbalah, the desire to decorate their forms borders on compulsion, and the decorations themselves (piercings and tattoos usually but not always) could be extreme enough to border on self-mutilation.

A high-pitched whine and whirr start up. We catch it only because it’s so close by. It stops just as suddenly. A tool of some kind, being tested?

The Elohite from the lecture had a long explanation for the modification of their celestial forms was an almost universal habit among Habbalah, but essentially, the modifications serve as a coping mechanism. A Habbie who feels weak or feels as though it has lost control of its surroundings will apply decorations to themselves as a method to prove or regain their agency. That was one of the reasons the newly-redeemed Elohite gave anyway.

(Is that what we did? If so, does that give us the power to STOP it?)

(Is that why Mariah hasn’t told us? So we wouldn’t try to talk her out of it?)

We hear another tool being tested, it’s a briefer, more buzzy than whirring.

What Habbalah did with their celestial forms seemed like an odd detail to cover in a lecture aimed towards angels being trained for corporeal work. Who in that room would ever get close enough to a Habbie’s celestial form to even care about those tendencies?

Us, apparently.

(Immersion learning at its most effective here, folks.)

We hear the sound of a deep breath. To a corporeally-adjusted celestial like Mariah (presumably) and us, breath in celestial form becomes another expression of body language. This sound in particular is a sharp inhale, a brace against upcoming unpleasantness.

The first tool comes on again. Turns back off. Mariah exhales. Paces over to the door. There’s a click of an actual mechanical lock engaging. No one will walk in on Mariah and interrupt that way. She turns around. Paces back towards us. And stops.

Fabric rustles. The cabinet directly across from us opens. Mariah pops off the cap of the marker. We cant hear what surface she’s drawing on, but we have a guess (please let us be wrong). The marker cap goes back on.

And then, we’re back to that same sharp inhale. We hear the high-pitched whirr again, and this time it stays on, and changes tenor as some part of the tool makes contact with something—or someone. (We are definitely not wrong, not about this.) It sounds a bit like a power saw cutting. Mariah lets out one brief yelp—and then goes silent except for some suppressed whimpers.

Celestial forms are not literal bodies. Mariah’s celestial body is no more literal flesh and blood than ours is primarily condensed water vapor. This is not a comfort.

The cutting happens in fits and starts. Mariah does a little, takes these deep, gulping breaths like the ones used to modulate panic, and starts again. Each time, there’s that one brief outcry (blending so perfectly with the music playing to the point where we wonder if that speaks to the genre’s origin) and a steely, somehow scarier silence as she works.

The radio only masks her noises from those outside the room. We hear everything. We can’t block the noises out.

The concept of celestial pain has always been a bit abstract to us. We never felt any pain growing up in Heaven, and we’ve never been in celestial combat to experience it that way. While Hell has certainly done its job to make celestial pain more immediately relevant to us, so far Mariah’s found descriptions of it more useful as a threat than as a reality. Vague threats and disturbing stories of worse can work perpetually to keep us in compliance. Actually following through can only work so many times before there’s no more Kyriotate left for it to work on. So while we didn’t disbelieve, exactly, the celestial pain in front of us is visceral beyond anything we’ve ever experienced in Hell or otherwise.

(For once, we’re glad we can’t see from inside here. Or smell.)

Finally, there’s one last cry and the first tool goes quiet. It clatters against the floor as Mariah does her best to regulate her breathing. Her hands press against the table, like she’s bracing her weight.

We want to think she’s done. She’s not, of course. This is just a lull, while Mariah picks up whatever she’s been making. We feel like we should be able to hear more of what’s happening, little give away thumps or components contacting each other as Mariah fits her creation to her body. There are a few adjustments, with some manual tool. Briefer, thankfully. Less painful? We hope so.

The second automatic tool starts up. Stops. Starts and stops. It reminds us of someone drilling into a block of wood. All of that eight times in slightly different locations.

(It’s not as bad as the first one. As if that makes anything about this okay.)

(It doesn’t.)

The drilling stops and stays stopped. There are still more noises that the music doesn’t drown out, but none of them come from Mariah crying out. As song after song plays on and no more of that happens, we allow ourselves to relax. Slightly.

(We’re not breathing. Especially not when we’re confined to a silicate prison without access to a true celestial body. But it’s almost like letting out a breath.)

We don’t relax for too long. Mariah sits down in front of us and starts the unlocking sequence of our cage again. All of our minds were so focused on what Mariah was doing to herself (understandably so) that we forgot one small fact, one very small, very vital fact.

Mariah isn’t done with her project yet. This involves us too.

—

“Kira, let’s talk.”

The radio is back down to its normal volume, and it appears as though Mariah is finally ready to speak to us. Of course, now we’re not sure we’re ready to speak to her. What just happened is completely alien to us. Minds are still scurrying about trying to piece together that—whatever it is we just observed with Mariah with that one half-remembered lecture given over a century ago.

“Ahh!” Mariah says, as though she just realized something. “Please, don’t be scared for a bit.”

Disturbance comes from a few notes of essence being spent and suddenly we’re feeling…fine. Calm, even. Like we [Mariah and I] can just talk about this like two fully-fledged celestials and like maybe we should. It’s not that sickly artificial relief she tried to pin on us back when she first explained the arrangement. We don’t feel anything at all in particular except the sense that what just happened is somehow fine and normal (It’s not, we know this intellectually. We just temporarily aren’t feeling the emotional repercussions of that knowledge). We feel like everything is fine and ordinary and manageable. We haven’t felt like this since…since before we were trapped.

Does she mean to help us? Is this helping us?

This is new. The only positive emotion she’s ever attempted to resonate us with has been Love, and that one we’ve always bounced.

“So, what do we need to talk about? Your—” we can’t come up with a neutral-sounding, non-dissonant word. “—what you just did?”

(We are speaking very calmly. Like we watched Mariah do a cool skateboard trick, instead of something horrifying.)

Mariah sighs. “My new body modification, yes.” We feel ourselves being picked up and moved.

“Why?”

“A divine whim brought about by your suggestion.” She does sound a touch smug here when she answers. This is a Habbalite who has regained control over her surroundings, while she delays a Kyriotate’s impending panic attack. “You made a good point. The more context you have, the more useful you’ll be when you overhear things. You know how to stay quiet and you know better than to escape. So when I’m here in Hell and not otherwise occupied, there’s no reason to keep you locked up. And maybe you’ll be less bored this way.”

Her voice is very close, like her mouth is right next to us. Mariah is probably holding us right up to her face. We wonder what she sees when she looks into our crystal. Is it just an ordinary looking gemstone? Or is there some evidence of us in there?

(Yes, let’s distract our minds with completely useless speculation. That sounds like a good plan.)

“I’m not bored.”

“No. You were petrified right now, and you’ll probably be scared again once the Calmness wears off. But I meant in general.” Her voice goes higher, not in pitch, but in a point-of-origin sense, as she lowers us down. “Anyway, no one else really pays attention to body mods, so I thought of that as a way to carry around your catcher and keep it sufficiently hidden. Think of it like you using me as a host. It’s not that different right? Except that I still have control of my body.”

She says this as though she sees no reason for us to be horrified. Not by the concept she just presented to us. Not from what we just witnessed when the radio was turned up. We’re not yet, not anymore. Though once her Resonance wears off, we surely will be.

We [as represented by the force catcher] click into a setting built and measured especially for us. There’s the sound of something else closing and latching into place. Ambient sounds are a touch quieter than they were a second ago, but not as muffled as our usual cage makes them.

“How’s that?” The voice comes from around us and a bit above us. Actually, it’s a nearly two-hundred seventy degree wall of sound that surrounds us from every direction but what we’ll call directly in front of us. We’re probably embedded somewhere inside Mariah. Sternum maybe, where a human body’s clavicles would meet. “It’s just like having a host, isn’t it?”

(It’s not! It’s so not!)

“There are differences,” we say. For one, we have never had to physically hurt a host before to ride around in it. And the idea of doing so is—it’s not us. It’s not any kind of Kyriotate thing.

We want to object. We want to say “This is worse than our usual cage. Put us back,” because parts of us hate the very idea of this so much. But, we can’t say that without dissonance because when Mariah moves about the room to clean up her mess we move with her. And it is better. We savor how the echoes change and how our kinesthetic sense has use again. When Mariah goes to pick up that tool she dropped on the floor earlier (not thinking about how it was most recently used) we can sense ourself getting lower as well.

Despite ourself, the new sensation makes us a little giddy.

Then, Mariah takes us over to the door.

“Can you stay quiet, Kira? Unless I give the signal it’s okay.” We hear the usual sequence of taps, from the sound of her fingertip hitting some hard bit of plastic just outside of us.

We hum against her, the way we might try to communicate in the Angelic language while inhabiting a corporeal form. Complex statements might be out, but through testing out a few tones, we find that simple ideas (“Yes,” “No,” “Huh?” “What the ever-loving fuck?”) seem to be relatively straightforward.

We hum yes.

“Good.” We hear the lock she engaged earlier reverse, and the sound of a door handle being pushed down, not from across the room as is by now familiar to us, but immediately from below. Because when Mariah leaves this time, we go out with her.

Our world has been so small and dark in the several months (years?) we’ve spent captured. It’s consisted of only one stone, one room, one demon, but now, finally, as Mariah steps out and the door closes behind her we can sense our world getting a touch bigger and we can see (Metaphorically, of course; we’re still completely blind) a thin sliver of light.

Chapter 18: Raye gets some enrichment.

Chapter Text

“Shall I give you a tour?” Mariah asks, as pleasantly as we’ve ever heard her.

We’re still reeling from what just happened. Understandably so, we think. Mariah’s artificial calmness will last at least a few more hours, after which time we’ll either start to panic again or we’ll be able to patch together some semblance of functionality on our own.

To say the least, our feelings on a tour are mixed. On one hand, it’s refreshing to be outside our little box set in the corner of one little room. On the other hand, we are now trapped inside the chest cavity of one very off-model Habbalite who has just mutilated herself to make that possible. On the other, other hand, we should jump at Mariah’s offer to give us more information—it is our stated benefit from this arrangement. On the other, other, other hand, there’s only so much we can try not to think about at a time, and we doubt we’ll enjoy contemplating any of the discoveries we’ll make on this tour.

We could keep going. We have more than enough hands to go around.

But in the end, the question isn’t about what we want. Not for Mariah, who offers us interpretation in return for an additional bit of evidence that she’s the one in control of our relationship. Not for us, who approaches this as an assignment of sorts. We’ve found a host to help, and now we need to walk a distance in her shoes. Or be walked, considering our current mode of transportation.

(Or let’s not consider it, yet. Let’s avoid the freak out.)

We give Mariah an affirmative hum. Yes, let’s see what lies beyond this room.

—

“Tizzy’s office.” Mariah turns in what is presumably the direction of said office. “She has her own supply closet there and then there’s a secured area beyond that. I’ll take you to see that later.”

Hear, more like, but we don’t bother with the correction.

Mariah turns in the opposite direction. “For now, we’re going downstairs for some break-time.” She pushes all her force into pushing open a heavy door, into what must be a stairwell. Her footsteps descend about twenty stairs or so and then stop. We hear the beeps of a code being entered, the same kind of lock on the room we’re stored in. We wonder if the actual codes themselves are the same.

“We’re heading out into the main office area. Remember, stay quiet.”

We don’t need the reminder.

Mariah steps into the office and we’re slightly shocked at the noise level. Not that we didn’t expect it, exactly. We’ve been here before, even, when we first arrived and still part of a yet-to-be differentiated set. It’s just we’re more used to a room so quiet the sound of airflow in the ventilation system can tell us whether any demonlings are lurking. So while it’s not amazingly loud down here, we have to strain to hear the cues we’ve come to rely on—breath and footsteps, taps and rustles—over the sounds of office equipment and now-parseable conversations.

At least we can feel and hear Mariah’s steps change when she pushes forward through this space. Her usual Djinnish shuffle has turned into a brittle but Habbie-appropriate stride. The difference between public and almost-private? An act of confidence she’s putting on for those around her? An act of confidence she’s putting on for us?

“Bless it, Shoggoth! We’ve got more than enough Americans to fill the Q4 requests. Where are the Soviets I asked for?”

“The Game—”

“I don’t fucking care. Get your slimy ass back over to the Soul Yards and don’t come back until you’ve gotten what I’ve asked for.”

Mariah provides the context for the conversation: “Request management and procurement.” She pauses, then adds, “Technically, I’m part of that department.”

We make an affirmative sound, while a bit of us considers the implication of the word ‘procurement’ in this context.

A couple of turns later:

“…expense forms A20139 box 10b and V3902 box 18a have conflicting information. We’ll need that corrected before we can reimburse you for the equipment. No you can’t talk to my—”

“…the insurance only covers premature specimen loss up to the entrance of your facility, we need the other half of your payment by Sept—”

“Accounting. Payable and Receivable.”

We give an affirmative hum. We are theoretically familiar with the concept of invoices. Offices aren’t our native environment, but some of our hosts need to go there from time to time.

“…there was a database upgrade last month, and everyone needs a fresh client install. Facility policy. No, I don’t care if there were spiders coming out of Todd’s harddrive—”

“Help Desk.”

We make an inquisitive noise.

“They mostly handle computer stuff. Turning machines off and on again. Yelling at people to upgrade their software. Sometimes they even get the printer to work, without explosions. The server room is right next door.”

Screams sound out as Mariah takes us past the next department. When it stops we’re far enough away that we barely hear the follow up question: “Now tell us, which was better? 1? Or 2?”

“Research and Development.” Mariah manages to sound both wistful and disdainful as she names this department. Would she try for a position here, if she thought she had a chance?

(Most likely.)

The screams start up again, fainter this time, and follow us around yet another corner.

“Conference rooms.” Too many voices overlap to pick out any individual lines. That said, everyone is clearly arguing. A harmonious workplace, this is not.

“…disappointed with your impact on company synergy—”

“Inspector’s office. He runs the place. Tizzy’s a Knight under him who heads up the Procurement department.”

We make another inquisitive noise, and Mariah explains: “He’s not an Inspector of anything. Just Inspector. It’s a better title than ‘Captain’ or—what is it that Heaven uses? ‘Friend’.”

(Most of Heaven. Our Archangel has never been one for official distinctions. Not that Creation doesn’t have our own ways of determining one’s personal status in relation to others, they just tend to be more internally flexible and externally opaque. For example, we get a bit of respect for still being directly under Creation, and also for our mother’s reputation, but we lose a bit of the same for our focus on the practical and our mother’s choice to enter service to Judgment. It balances out. Anyway, we don’t miss them. Titles bring political considerations, which encourage approval-chasing behavior, which discourages the really weird acts of creation that are vital to our Word.)

All our mental rambling translates to a dismissive noise we don’t think Mariah can fully parse. She moves on without response.

“Our latest customer survey indicates that our service reliability has increased by 8.4% compared to last quarter…however our technician friendliness rating had decreased by 12.9% costing us market share to Spec-Express.”

“Sales and Marketing.” Now it’s Mariah’s turn to be dismissive. “The Impudite who heads up the division isn’t even a Technology servitor.” She walks a few more steps. “Media, if you’re wondering.”

We try to convey ‘Who else would it be?’ via hum. It sounds mostly like agreement.

We turn a corner and hear the sound of hot liquid brewing. (It’s a bit weird that hot and cold liquids sound different enough that we can tell what’s what by the noise alone, but they really do.) Random beeps sound out at different pitches. One might be a microwave. The others seem to come out of a speaker. They sound depressed.

“No—no I swear I fired in time! Ahh—”

“Move over.” We hear the clinking of jewelry. Wind-chime Habbie in his natural environment, maybe? “I’ll show who’s really the boss at Celestial Invaders.”

We want to hear more, but Mariah’s pace speeds up. “Break room.”

(In what sense of the word? She clearly doesn’t find it relaxing.)

We don’t make an inquisitive hum, however, and Mariah turns another corner and opens a door. The timbre of noises change. Less office equipment overall. More phones ringing. More people sounds.

“…This is Brenda, how may I direct your call?…”

“All visitors must be accompanied by an employee at all times.”

“This is reception, and the elevators are just outside.”

Mariah pushes through another door, and the background din temporarily lowers.

The ride down in the elevator is odd. Not that the motion of the elevator is significantly different compared to mortal elevator rides, but it’s odd in the conceptual sense. Whatever the precise metaphysics are, Hell gets thematically associated with a ‘downward’ direction. Angels fall into demons. The Lower Hells contrast with the Higher Heavens. The lower we go then, the deeper into Hell we should be going. Yet that’s not the sensation we have.

Our Hell is that one box in the corner of that one room. This almost feels—not quite like freedom but like we’ve taken one baby step closer to it.

Anyway, the elevator door opens into a whole ocean of undifferentiated noise. Forget about no longer hearing subtle noises. We have to focus on Mariah when speaks directly to us.

“Public area.” Mariah says at conversation volume as she’s jostled into the flow of the crowd. “There’s a gift shop over there. Media run. Mostly sells T-shirts and other useless crap.” Nothing in Mariah’s motion gives us any useful information to go off of. Is Mariah even able to turn in this crowd? Maybe not. So, all we know is there’s gift shop. That’s cool, we guess.

(We bet there’s lots of fun things we could do with that gift shop given sufficient freedom of action. Or better yet, what if we brought someone who has the Malakite of Creation attunement down here. They’d certainly have fun, for a little bit at least.)

(Note: We do not actually want to see a Malakite of Creation down here. Angels do not belong in Hell.)

“And there’s the conference hall. Marketing mostly uses it to hold Technology symposiums and attract more clients, but there’s shows sometimes too. There’s this Lightsaber tournament coming up, that’ll be held there. If I’m not dealing with a quota then, I can take you along. Even if you can’t see what’s going on, the commentary is usually pretty good. And when it’s not…well, the resulting riot tends make an entertaining show of its own.”

We try to imagine. The tournament could be entertaining. But we also know, there are worse things in Hell than boredom. Maybe this is one of them.

Anyway, we keep our hum noncommittal.

—

Mariah’s tour pauses at the Cafeteria. The absolute noise level here is just as loud as the outside only with more concentrated crowds. We can barely make out her “Cafeteria” amongst the rest of the chatter. We mostly lose the following explanation of this being a central gathering place of some kind. Thus, we’re left on our own figure out why exactly, Mariah stops here.

We can tell there are lunch ladies. For a certain gender-neutral definition of ‘lunch lady’. Judging from the screams ahead of us, anyone who actually calls them that ends up as part of the lunch.

The food, based on the scraps of chatter we can pick out and Mariah’s own reactions, is barely edible at best, an experimental Haagentian-Vapulan collaboration at worst, and mostly a prop for large-scale socialization and idea exchange, of both the consensual and non-consensual variety.

(For a word that proclaims to be all about Mad Science and experimentation, there’s certainly a lot of plagiarism going on. It’s the renewable fuel that runs Technology.)

Mariah makes it through the line. She mutters “Just a little bit,” as her refrain. The plops that follow sound as though ‘a little bit’ is not a concept the lunch ladies are happy to indulge. Maybe they have a quota. For the second time in what we’re arbitrarily calling ‘today’, we’re grateful for the near total sensory deprivation inflicted upon us. The sounds of food hitting the tray are deeply unappetizing in and of itself, no sight, smell, or—God forbid—taste required. And we’re not sure we want to know what exactly makes that crackling sound.

Mariah’s footsteps are not at all audible in all at this volume, but we still feel when her forward motion hesitates, as she looks for an empty spot in all this din. Some of those indistinguishable voices turn in her direction. Her stillness must have attracted attention. Somebody speaks. We can’t pick out the words but the tone is harsh and cutting. Mariah’s body suddenly hunches over, then straightens, then curls in again through hysterics, and finally freezes. Her series of reactions are reminiscent of moves she tried with us early on when she had the reliquary at her disposal and wanted to prove that her resonance was in good working order.

“Choirmates,” she explains, voice shaky. “They do that sometimes.”

(That probably explains where Mariah got the idea from. Plagiarism sucks.)

Through it all, Mariah manages to keep the tray steady. That’s what makes us realize all this really is normal and expected for her. All those times she left us alone for a short while and came back emotionally unsettled, those were her Bandmates playing with her psyche.

Mariah makes her way over to a table that seems a little quieter than most.

“You can talk for now. No one else is going to hear you over all this.”

Below us, there’s a stirring noise that does nothing to make the food sound any more appetizing, and we’re not entirely sure how much will actually get eaten. Some minimal amount, we imagine. It’s not like celestials derive any nutrition from food, and it’s unlikely Mariah’s getting any pleasure out of it either.

“Why put up with this?” We ask. “You could just use the break room upstairs. Is the food even that good? Remotely palatable, even?”

Mariah mumbles out. “No, the food is terrible. However, the Choirmates I encounter down here only push me around because they can see my Discord. They don’t know me at all. Most of them, I’ll never see again. Or, I won’t remember them if I do. The ones upstairs know me, and they know how to make it personal.”

We understand that. “So why not just stay in your workshop until you have to go upstairs? It’s not like the Damp Mop Djinn doesn’t give you enough to do.”

“People watch, Kira. They notice when I don’t leave the supply closet. It’s considered ‘bad for company morale’. Someone always comes to find me, and when they do, I get in trouble with Tizzy for causing a ruckus. There’s not a situation where this doesn’t happen.”

We don’t say anything to express our sympathy, but then we don’t need to. Mariah can check her mood ring.

“It doesn’t matter. Unlike you, I’m not some pathetic Heaven-angel who can’t handle a bit of emotion thrown at her. I can bear it.”

(We don’t bother with feeling insulted. Mariah’s just a Habbie doing what Habbies do best when they’re vulnerable. Projecting.)

Whatever she tells us [herself and me both], we can feel her unsteady gestures. We can hear the occasional sob she can’t quite stifle while she does…something with her food. Her reactions right now are resonance-caused, but as we’re well aware, often time true associations come along with false feelings. When she inflicts Anger on us, we think of all the topics we keep buried in our inner minds for civility’s sake. Same for when we’re sad.

Most of us would bet these resonance bursts bring up similar emotional associations for her as well. Is it an understanding that everything here is deeply fucked up? Or the knowledge that she’s never going to be the Bandmate inflicting the resonance, only the one swallowing it down? Or the realization that this tour she gives us to demonstrate her power and control over us, reveals her venerabilities as well?

A tray slides across the table, and Mariah stands up.

“Anyway, let’s get back to the tour. We’ll take the stairs up this time. Remember, no talking.”

—

Mariah isn’t nearly so chipper after the cafeteria visit. The visit to the next floor is more like a walk through some corridors than a guided tour.

The Research and Development department aside, this facility as a whole functions less as a research lab and more as a prison that specializes in holding future test subjects. The floor we’re on now seems dedicated to housing damned souls. Mariah refers to them as residents. If we could safely speak, we might quibble with that term, which implies some sort of voluntary living (after-living?) arrangement. ‘Prisoner’ seems more appropriate.

The noise level here matches the office area in volume, but it takes on much more casual tone. Based on sounds we hear, we could almost mistake it for a regular college dormitory back on the corporeal, except that the souls aren’t allowed to leave the floor for any reason. Our inquisitive hum gets the simple explanation that all human souls in this place are facility property. Her response to our follow-up hum tells us that Mariah doesn’t understand what else we could be confused by.

(Blessed souls in heaven don’t ‘belong’ to anyone. Some might settle into careers or enter service to an Archangel, but that’s always a choice they make. Similarly, while some places in Heaven might be restricted to authorized personnel only, there’s no general restriction on movement. A blessed human soul can go just about anywhere the average angel can and at least one place we can’t. So, while damned souls being considered property in Hell shouldn’t have surprised us once we factor in our own experience, the concept itself is new to us. We don’t like it.)

“It’s not too bad. Most of them sign up for this.” Mariah says as she turns a corner and the noise dampens a bit. “Most souls in Tartarus spend their time in one of the factories here until they’re too damaged to work. These ones get to relax and socialize. The Impudites on this floor make sure nobody injures anybody else too badly. The point is to keep the residents well-maintained during their stay here.”

Mariah quiets as the outside noises turn up again.

Media garbage blares from various sources: a game show here, a soap opera there. A bit of passing conversation mentions an upcoming Game Night. (No details given if anyone from the actual Word will be involved, or if it’s only lower-case games.) Apparently, representatives from the cafeteria will be hosting a Taco Tuesday event soon. A new arrival is being told by one group of more experienced souls that it is NOT something to look forward to. Another group insists it’ll be fine. It’s practically a rite of passage.

(Our instinct is to agree with the first group on principle.)

Overall, Mariah’s explanation combined with what we hear does make it seem like a good life for the Damned. Until it’s not.

What Mariah leaves unstated: These damned souls are as much specimens as the Kyriotates she captures. We wonder how many of the souls here are actually volunteers. Of those who are, how many were given a full disclosure of what would eventually happen to them before it was too late to back out? How many now are even aware of what happens to the souls who leave? Do they even know what awaits them at the end? Would it make a difference?

As Mariah passes by various rooms, we listen for signs of audible behavior changes. A wave of silence that follows Mariah around, perhaps. Or something else that would indicate a level of knowing fear when a less-familiar demon shows up. There’s not much. Sure, some voices do lower a bit as we pass by, and some conversations even cut off abruptly—demons are never safe—but it’s nothing compared to their reaction when someone else approaches. (Balseraph, slithers with a slight rattle at the rear. We’ve heard that one before.)

The whole floor goes stone silent fast. The only conversations we can hear now take place between the Balseraph and who we believe is one of the Impudites who supervise this floor. They’re talking about surplus souls.

In theory, not a lot of research officially happens here. In practice, every Vapulan in our vicinity seems to have some research project on the side. It makes sense at least some of them would need test subjects as well. All but the newest souls have to be aware that something sinister goes on here. (As though this weren’t a given in Hell) People get taken away and don’t come back. Stories have to be told at least.

“Oh. Look who’s skimming off the top.” Mariah observes to us under her breath.

We make a hum.

“He won’t get in trouble. So long as he sticks to human souls and stays away from the high-demand demographics Request Management gets so fussy about. Acceptable losses and all that. The humans might even live through it.”

Luckily, the humans here are largely uninteresting to Mariah, and she chooses not to linger on. So the conversation fades away just after the Balseraph starts to talk in detail about making a withdrawal. It’s for the best. We have enough to avoid thinking about.

—

The floor below has a few damned souls serving as junior staff members. On the next one Mariah takes us to, the guards are all demons.

“Hell-side celestials,” Mariah explains softly. “Demons and Habbalah both.”

That would explain it. This floor is the quietest yet of the ones Mariah has shown us, not quite as silent as the room we’re usually kept in, but quiet enough that we can pick out the sounds of individual footsteps on carpet. Mariah’s shuffle and soon enough the idle pacing of two guards. One Djinn, one more human like, no wings. Mariah doesn’t tense up, so we guess the second is a Lilim rather than Habbalite.

“You going to this weekend’s Virus Wars? It’s Elks vs. Creepers.”

“Hmmph.”

“Like I’ve haven’t seen your Creepers themed scrapbook…I might be able to get you some tickets if—”

Their chitchat fades away as Mariah walks past the guard post. Some canned music pipes in through the loudspeakers (It’s a generic easy listening melody. The complete opposite of catchy. We remember nothing about it a few seconds after hearing it).

The demons held here come from multiple places: captured Renegades, low-ranked servitors kidnapped from other Words, traumatized Orphans from Princes long dead and forgotten who were acquired on the cheap, and of course, the demons who tried to infiltrate the facility and got caught.

If the humans are kept all together in a relatively unsecured and dorm-like arrangement, the demons here are kept in what’s more akin to solitary confinement. Every demon gets their own hermetically sealed cell, and everyone on this floor wears a will-shackle attuned to a specific guard. The music was specifically chosen for its calming psychological effects, and, according to Mariah (whose word we have to take here), the wall color and furnishings were also chosen for the same reason.

Mariah stops at one cell. “We even have a Pachadite, which is pretty cool. Not a lot of places have them.”

We hum.

“Nightmares specific choir. It’s rare that someone orders them as a specimen, but when they do, it’s better to already have at least on hand, as opposed to making an emergency trip to the Marches.”

Mariah starts walking again. “We hold most Bands here, Calabim excepted. Our facility isn’t officially licensed.” She pauses. “The demand isn’t high enough to risk it.”

We wonder what weight ‘officially’ carries in Mariah’s statement. Not everything here operates by the book. Look at how unofficial we are.

But then, we suppose, we don’t come with a passive, always-on entropy field that interferes with delicate technological devices.

As we [Mariah, actively and I, passively] continue walking, we hear what sounds like a shoe hitting against a plastic wall. The calming music and decor must not be calming enough.

No, of course not, unlike the humans souls downstairs who have mostly volunteered and are mostly kept comfortable and complacent by demons who actually enjoy being around them (like a child enjoys ice cream), all of these demons are captured against their will. Most of them have probably figured out their eventual fate.

Do we feel sorry for them? Should we feel sorry for them? We don’t know. Maybe if we talked to them, we would have empathy for some of them. Angel or demon, this isn’t a nice life for any celestial to have, and the ending will be even worse. Maybe we should have empathy for them that on principle alone.

But, it’s also Hell. Who is to say that any of them wouldn’t be doing something even worse given the freedom and opportunity to do so? Would not having them here provide any net good to the Symphony as we know it. What about the ones who are only here because they tried to infiltrate the facility for their own ends? Maybe those ones deserve it. Or maybe those are the ones who got caught trying to rescue a friend.

“Lots of Shedim, though,” Mariah says after we don’t respond to whatever she last said. She lets that statement breathe and leaves us pick up the implications.

Shedim. Fallen Kyriotates. The ones that Mariah (or her predecessors) captured from the corporeal who then Fell sometime in the gap between when they were initially captured and when they were due to be used. (Also, perhaps, the by-catches too.) If we were considering Falling as an escape option (We weren’t), this is Mariah showing us the consequences.

That note of Dissonance itches at us for the first time in what feels like months.

It’s a new frame to the composition. Our situation [Mariah’s and mine] is at least tentatively based on the fact that our disposal would be as inconvenient for her as it would be for us, and that our falling would prove hazardous to her. Now, she shows us the situation isn’t like that at all. If we Fell, she’d take us here to be one more resident on this floor, one more acceptable loss in the cast of thousands that make up this facility.

(How many have there been?)

We give an affirmative hum. We understand.

—

We’re back on our usual floor and outside our usual room, but Mariah has one last stop on her tour. The bounce to her footsteps has returned. She’s saved the best for last.

“Anyone who wants to go into the secured area has to go through Tizzy’s office.” Mariah says, as she pushes the door open gingerly. “That’s why she gets away with doing so little work. She’s basically the Door Djinn. You know to stay quiet.”

We hum.

Mariah enters the Damp Mop Djinn’s office. If she gives Mariah any acknowledgment or attention, we don’t hear it.

The whole space takes Mariah about twice as much time to cross as it does the little supply room but not nearly so long as any of the other floors. When Mariah stops, we hear a series of monotone beeps being entered. A door clicks open.

“Security measure,” Mariah murmurs when the door automatically shuts behind her, “Someone enters without entering the correct code and boom. Headshot. From about five different weapons.”

We hum again.

“Anyone dumb enough to mis-enter the codes or forget them is considered expendable. Employee safety is less important than keeping this area off-limits to outsiders.”

This must be the area the Game is plotting to gain access to. It’s off limit for audits, officially at least, acknowledged by both the Mad Genius Vapula and the Dread Lord Asmodeus themselves. Not that it stops them from trying to infiltrate, but as of our last overheard conversation, it hasn’t happened yet. At least, not that we’ve noticed. We realize why this access to this place is so tightly protected when the first strands of conversation reach us.

The first conversations we overhear are in our native language.

No, the Game probably doesn’t approve of keeping unfallen angels in Hell. Not long-term at least.

“When my Archangel hears about this, you’re going to pay for it!”

“Fuck you, and fuck your entire Word! May your Technology rust and melt away into a thousand motes of dust!”

“Please, please just let me go, I’ll tell you anything.”

“Maybe you should just stop being such a coward, Tulio.”

“Like you wouldn’t, if you were given the opportunity.”

“I would not.” (Angelic tone marker: uncertain but hopeful that what’s said is true.)

Overall, it’s a cacophony of a hundred voices belonging to perhaps a dozen distinct individuals. They’re the first Choirmates we’ve heard in what feels like years. Unlike us, stealth does them no good. They’re free to chat and heckle and curse and plead all they want.

Until they die.

(Or until they Fall and get taken to the lower floor. Just another accidental Shedite added to the pile.)

“No one’s going to let you go.” Mariah says. She addresses everyone: the silent us resting in her chest cavity and and the chatty doomed ones in front of her. “You couldn’t even manage to escape before you got to Hell. None of you are from Lightning. What makes you think you have anything worth enough to be let out?”

We didn’t know anyone could feel queasy inside a Force Catcher. We can. That’s something else we’ve learned today.

If Mariah plans to continue her lecture, she’s cut off by another voice.

“If you’re wondering, the inventory level is low but sufficient for current demand. Tizzy is going to keep you on call down here until Q1 next year.” The rumbly, grumpy voice comes from a Djinn who has a prominent crustacean signature to its shuffle. “And stop taunting the specimens. It takes us days to get them to shut up again.”

(Inventory. Specimens. Each and every prisoner here. Except maybe us.)

“Yes, sir.”

Mariah walks off. Even with the reprimand, her gait here is still bouncier than we’ve felt on any other floors. Of all the places in the facility, the is area she likes the best. A side effect of her angel delusion? Or something else?

(Why do we still believe Mariah is redeemable?)

(Because we don’t have a chance to escape our most likely fate if we don’t.)

The next place Mariah shows off is the Ofanite pen. Her brief explanation tells us it contains about a half-dozen individuals at any given time, all attuned to by Djinn and laden down with Will Shackles. Their primary function is to test-drive vehicles Hell-side.

“Oh. Look whose back again to watch the Wheels.” This voice is female, mostly resigned, but also touch amused. She’s seen Mariah around before and seems to know our Habbie’s quirks. She approaches with human-sounding footsteps and the drumskin flap of leather wings. Impudite.

“Anyone new?” Mariah asks.

“Not since last year. We did have a near escape about a year back.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, we caught up with it in the supply closet actually.”

“Tizzy’s?”

“No, thank Lucifer. What a disaster that could have been. The one you work in.”

“Really? I’m surprised it made it that far. Usually the door is enough to keep them contained.”

“I suppose one just saw an opportunity to escape. You know how restless the Ofanim can be, even after months in captivity. New reliquary?”

“Huh?”

Oh fuck. We’re full on Essence, thanks to those messages from our mother. Impudites can see Essence with their glasses. They’ll see that Mariah has more Essence than she should theoretically be able to carry. We’re going to get caught. We are so going to get caught.

“Oh, I mean, you just look like you have a lot spare of Essence today.” There’s a tap of a short fingernail on hard plastic. Then a what feels and sounds like Mariah being jostled while an arm wraps around her shoulders.

We give a quiet, urgent hum and hope it conveys to Mariah what we need it to.

It does. “Oh…um yeah, new reliquary.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind lending me some Essence, would you?”

“No, not at all.” Mariah sounds like she’s been charmed out of her mind. The tone is similar to how she speaks to us on those occasions we bounce her infatuation back to her.

“Good girl. Now move along. You know only authorized personnel are allowed to interact with the Wheels.”

Mariah walks along, steps less bouncy now. Her temporary best friend has rejected her. Impudites must be similar to Mercurians that way, easy to underestimate because of stereotypes but difficult to outmaneuver in social situations.

If Mariah has any particular feelings about what happened, she doesn’t show it. The tour continues on.

“And these are the cells we keep other Heaven-angels in when the need arises. They’re all empty right now. They usually are. There’s not enough demand for celestial-side experiments. Not enough restraints to keep them anyone around just in case.”

We hum in understanding. It makes sense. If this facility keeps angels in Hell, then they have an incentive to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to escape. Force Catchers make Kyriotates relatively easy to keep. Ofanim, apparently, are valuable enough to merit the extra resources.

Other choirs though…

(We don’t like thinking about people as specimens. Inventory. Things. It’s a terrible mindset. How do the demons here manage it? Is it natural for them?)

(And we can’t help but think of our friend Cole when we think of the Ofanim trapped down here. We’re pretty sure it’s not down here with us, but how could we be totally sure? Maybe we could give Mariah a description. Blue flames. Lots of spokes. Do any of them look like that? Would we want to know, if one did? Wouldn’t everyone want to know if someone they loved were being held down here? Or would knowing and not being able to do anything about it be an even worse situation?)

Mariah speaks again and distracts most of our minds from that thought. “There was a Malakite here for a couple months back…oh about three or four years before you came to me. Three of the handlers here lost Forces trying to restrain her before we finally sent her off to our Archangel for experimentation.”

Good. The demons who work here deserve that kind of trouble.

When Mariah brings us back to the supply closet and to the box we sometimes call home, we feel like we have a decent overview of this building. Why it exists, and how the demons who work here feed into that. We know the usual kinds of prisoners and even a bit about the more unusual ones.

But we still haven’t actually met the most unusual prisoner yet.

No, Mariah doesn’t show us that one until someone else gives her another chore to do.

Chapter 19: Raye has an encounter with the paper shredder.

Chapter Text

From what we can tell, Mariah’s Hellside job description is mostly ‘Whatever the Damp Mop Djinn tells her to do’. This covers a wide spectrum of tasks from the tedious to the terrifying (for Mariah).

We’ve already witnessed a number of these tasks just from the supply closet: Repair work on a variety of electronic components, a never-ending stream of data entry, inventory restocks—that is, either tracking down or replacing all those items that go missing while Mariah’s out.

Now that Mariah totes us around with her, we get to see an even wider range of her Hellside duties. For example, we learn she sometimes carries messages. We’re currently accompanying her on one such delivery errand, from the Damp Mop Djinn to the head of the Request Management.

Of course, the reward for a successful message delivery is more work.

“Digitize this data,” this supervisor says (she’s fairly still, no there’s audio context to hint at her nature, though the voice itself is feminine). “Then, use the paper shredder to dispose of the hard copies. Clean the room when you’re done.”

We can almost feel Mariah gulp. “Yes, ma’am.”

—

We’ve heard mention of the paper shredder (or Paper Shredder to acknowledge its status as a proper noun) in a number of overheard conversations. The tone accompanying its mention trends towards either casual disdain or near religious fear. Either way, most object to its existence on some level. However, no one complains to the Damp Mop Djinn, who is presumably the only one who can get rid of it. The general conclusion amongst the kind of demons who gossip in Mariah’s supply room is that the incinerator is a more reliable method of object disposal, if in a less convenient location. Of course, the incinerator also stores records of who uses it, when it’s used, and what gets destroyed, while the Paper Shredder (like us) doesn’t officially exist in this facility. This makes it the ideal apparatus for losing inconvenient paperwork or any evidence of research failures.

(Technologists never use the term ‘research failure’ to describe the catastrophic and sometimes explosive breakdowns of their inventions, not that we’ve heard. The preferred euphemism is ‘temporary setback’ or maybe ‘minor issue’. Why? Because in Hell, occasional failure is never accepted as an inevitable consequence of exploring new ideas.)

Our initial assumption after all these mentions is that the Paper Shredder in question is a particularly menacing type of machinery and-slash-or a personal project of the Damp Mop Djinn’s. One mind pictures something particularly gargantuan and robust, liable to rend an unwary operator limb from celestial limb. A typical Technological marvel if you will. Another mind imagines the opposite, something intricate and fiddly and prone to explosion when someone so much as feeds it one sheet too many at a time. Or if the paper is a hair thicker or thinner than expected. Also, a typical Technological marvel.

Those assumptions are based on a rookie error brought about by previous inexperience with Vapulans at a population level. Vapulans do not fear machinery, no matter how outright dangerous it is. The most sensible among them consider literal Warning signs to be gentle instruction at best. The rest seem to regard the content of those signs as a fun suggestion to do exactly what is being warned against. Technologists revere Technology, both as a general principle and as the Word that animates them, but the only inventions they’ll treat with any sort of reverence are their own.

Because no, the Paper Shredder is not a machine of any sort.

It’s a Calabite.

(It is very much the Damp Mop Djinn’s personal project. We’ll give ourself credit for that guess.)

The Damp Mop Djinn keeps it locked up with will shackles and drugged to the edge of incoherence, but nevertheless what sits before us in that Djinn’s private supply closet and what Mariah breathlessly refers to as the Paper Shredder is a real, live (but completely off the record) Calabite in Tartarus.

Its wings beat against the air slowly, shredded leather compared to an Impudite’s drumskin sound. Occasionally the scraps of paper that surround it rustle. We hear a low-pitched guttural utterance.

We give Mariah an inquisitive hum, and hope our question is obvious. How did this one get here?

“One of the Ofanim fell.” She leaves the answer at that, but she taps out the signal letting us know we’re safe to speak here. “Don’t worry about stealth. It can’t communicate.”

We’re not sure she’s right about that. From below us comes a rambling slurred blend of Angelic and Helltongue. The two languages blend together into one in-between pidgin of mostly incomprehensible melodies. The background notes sometimes drown out any meaning in the reverb of Helltongue while at other times they swell with an almost discernible Angelic Truth.

We feel an odd camaraderie with this Calabite. Look at us, speaking in a constant shift between two opposite languages. Different methods, different levels of coherency and care (we presume) in how we use our words, but we [I] feel that strand of connection nonetheless.

“How did it fall?”

Mariah makes an ‘I don’t know’ sound. It’s a weird bit of English not-quite-loanword sprinkled in with her Helltongue. No, the Ofanim aren’t her responsibility. It wouldn’t matter to her how this one fell, not the way a newly-fallen Shedim she might capture would be.

“Why is it here?” we ask. “I thought Technology wouldn’t risk keeping even a single Calabite around.”

Mariah lets out a sigh. “Tizzy insists on it. She transferred from another Word when our Archangel first gained his power and she says…well, that Calabim are useful provided they’re kept out of the way and managed properly. She’s attuned now, so nothing short of a direct order from the Inspector or our Archangel is getting rid of it. Until she gets bored of it.” We hear the click of something fastening down and to the right of us. “Shh. I’m about to use the Control bracelet.”

Mariah picks up and shoves something forward that we presume goes into the hands of the mostly inert Calabite at her feet. “Destroy this,” Mariah says in an authoritative voice we haven’t heard from her since early in our captivity.

The Paper Shredder's muttering ceases. For a split second, the room goes completely still. A small burst of Disturbance sounds out. Pieces of paper scatter downward, landing on what came before it with dull flutters.

“It’s not even all that useful,” Mariah says, after she repeats the process three more times. “Someone still has to clean up the scraps before it gets completely buried in the debris. Usually me, since Tizzy won’t. Supposedly, there are security advantages to using it over the incinerator or simply tossing things in a dumpster but really, it’s here so long as Tizzy wants to keep it, so we might as well make use of it.”

“How long has it been here?”

Mariah kicks through some scraps of paper. A small metal object clinks against the floor three times before it wobbles to a stop. There must be quite a lot of junk of a piled up around the Paper Shredder. “It was a bit after I started working for Tizzy. So, maybe seven or eight years. The Inspector probably knows about it by now, and no one else wants to be the messenger to tell our Archangel. So everyone just hopes Tizzy will get bored of it soon.”

“What’ll happen to it when she gets bored?”

“It’ll get disposed of,” Mariah says, “like anything else that becomes obsole—ahh! I hate when it does that.” She switches to the command voice. “Let go of me. Don’t touch me.”

A drowsy chuckle comes from the Paper Shredder, but Mariah takes another step forward unhindered. Drugged, it might be. Unconscious, it’s not.

We wonder…

If we take a mind off of a background issue we’re contemplating and use it to hone in on the Paper Shredder…

Mmphmh…mmmph…Marconi surprise…mmphugfh…

Communication barriers in Hell take many forms. The language, for example, obscures by its very nature. The structure of Helltongue makes lies easy and honest exchanges nearly impossible. Add to that most demons have an endless motivation to lie, and those without motivation will often still do so for either fun or practice. This means the high probability of falsehood sabotages every statement made in Hell.

(Except those from actual angels and maybe certain Balseraphs of Fate? Do any of those ever choose the Seraph resonance? Or have it imposed on them?)

(Not important right now.)

Application deadline…phphdumph…midnight…particle colli….smphsh…

Then, there’s the lack of privacy. Quiet places invite eavesdroppers. Spaces public enough to provide anonymity come with prohibitive noise levels. We want to introduce certain topics to Mariah, but we’ve found it impossible to so while she walks around with us. Even when we think she might be receptive, we’re only too aware that one wrong person overhearing the wrong string of words will get us both caught.

Mpphph….four down…manual override…mppmhrrph…explosive tortelli…

But there’s also the nature of the social hierarchy in Hell as we’ve observed it. Attention flows upwards. Mariah mostly gets away with her murmured statements to us because she’s a small, discordant demon in a dead-end job. Few demons care about what she says as long as she does what they say. Similarly, no one heeds the demonlings’ wilder tales. It’s probably why we’ve survived our careless echolocation attempts. No one pays attention to those beneath them in the hierarchy unless it involves them.

(This tendency isn’t necessarily exclusive to Hell. It’s just more explicitly the way of this plane than others.)

Blshdmph…crash land...mphphppmsh…behind schedule…prove the Drake equilibrium….

So when Mariah says that the demon sprawled out on the floor beneath her, the one she steps gingerly around while she drags the vacuum cleaner in from the farthest corner of the room, can’t communicate, she implies a multitude of possible barriers. The drugs can’t be doing its coherency any favors. Certainly, the constant switch between Helltongue and Angelic sets up a language barrier. Maybe it’s been prohibited to speak—about certain topics at least.

…send home (tone: impossible hypothetical) …phpuph…dinosaur capsu….

But there are social dynamics in play here, too. Even if the constant supply of drugs were discontinued tomorrow and it started to talk intelligibly at length, few demons here would bother to listen. The taboo against Calabim in Tartarus is that strong. No one wants see the Paper Shredder as a person, so they won’t. Mariah only addresses it to give commands, and we bet that attitude is universal here.

No one speaks to the Paper Shredder except to use it.

(We’re not even sure if the Paper Shredder gets referred to as an ‘it’ because the Calabite is technically classified as ‘equipment’ or because it doesn’t identify with a specific gendered pronoun. Probably the first. No one here sees it as a person enough to care about its hypothetical gender.)

…boxes from fine…pffph…robot blender cage…mmphph…tower…

We think of our own situation in that little supply closet and all the people who talk freely around us because they don’t know about our existence. The Paper Shredder must be in a similar position. While we question its ability to comprehend much through its drugged haze, it can hear any conversation that happens in this room and, if it cared to, it can read any of the words printed on the scraps of paper surrounding it.

(We assume. We don’t actually know how Helltongue literacy works in the Fallen. We would prefer not to find out.)

If we can reach out to it without Mariah figuring out what we’re doing—

…twenty-nine across…mphpmph…

We can! Right now even! All we need to do is wait for the vacuum cleaner to start up.

“Can you hear me?”

The question is simple, but we’ve made our choice of language and the unspecified second-person pronoun deliberately. If the Paper Shredder still speaks in Angelic…maybe it will recognize what (and who) we’re really asking while Mariah only picks up on the surface-level question.

Mariah snaps off the machine. “Yes, I can hear you,” There’s an annoyed edge to her voice. “But maybe let’s not try to talk right now. And keep it to Helltongue.”

She turns the vacuum back on. All the scraps sucked in create a roar that blocks out any outside noise. We bet it will drown out Mariah’s ability to catch the other response, should it come. Would she even care? If so, it would be only because of her possessiveness over us.

(Do you hear us, Paper Shredder? Will you respond? Will we be able to parse it?)

(Is communication with the Paper Shredder possible for us?)

…mmphph…hear...bmdphuph……mmphphh…little voice…phpmmph…

We strain our metaphorical ears further. We remind ourself, we’ve been trapped in Hell for at least two years now. We’ve had little else to do but listen the world around us and interpret the sounds. We might even be good at it by now. We create images of our environment out of little else but noise and context. We (desperately) want to talk with someone who isn’t Mariah and who won’t get us immediately caught.

We must be able to parse this. We need to be able to parse this.

(We hope Mariah doesn’t notice that Essence expenditure coming from us.)

The Paper Shredder’s slurred mumbles finally shape themselves into a meaningful statement, tinged with faint traces of Angelic harmonies.

“I hear you, little Voice. I hear you.”

Chapter 20: Raye helps Mariah with laundry.

Chapter Text

Our arrival back at the supply closet presents us with a bit of a conundrum. Our minds need some serious duck-level contemplation time. We have more pieces to arrange in our composition, and a few emergent problems we need to address, or at least navigate around. On the surface, everything seems as not-wrong as possible for a serious multi-mind think session. Mariah has turned on her preferred music, and she has just set down yet another box of components due for its turn in a seemingly endless series of repair jobs.

(The repairs might be actually endless. For definitions of ‘endless’ that don’t involve moving or otherwise getting rid of the hidden Destroyer. What are the chances that Mariah’s repair jobs are exclusively for the devices the Paper Shredder’s entropy field has made a mess of in a loop? Decently high.)

Our problem? Mariah hasn’t actually put us back in the box yet, not after the tour, not when doing her errands, and not even now that she’s back in her workroom and hunched over some small electronic device. We’re still here in her chest cavity.

(Still trying not to think too deeply about that.)

In theory, we know it shouldn’t matter if we’re here or if we’re in the box. In practice, we feel self-conscious and conspicuous here, like the lack of distance between us will let Mariah read all of our best and worst thoughts. It’s a silly hangup. Sure, we could try for deep contemplation anyway. Assuming Mariah doesn’t want to talk—

“So, tell me, Kira, what’s with the extra essence?” Mariah asks.

Fuck.

True to it’s name, the emergent problem (one of them) has emerged. The question itself doesn’t shock us; we’ve been expecting it since that encounter with that Impudite in the secured area. That is, Mariah now has proof that our essence reserves plus her own equals more than the maximum available to one eight-force Habbalite. That incident with the Paper Shredder probably didn’t help either. So, the question itself is fair and expected, if inconvenient. Our own internal response to the question, however? That sends us [most of our minds] reeling.

Initial instinct: We don’t want to answer this question. Unanimously.

There’s not a single mind here that considers a direct answer a good idea. Not personally, and definitely not strategically. We needed that contemplation time to think of an acceptable dodge. We are not getting that time. Our available options are what we can think of before Mariah decides to sic her Resonance on us.

(When that happens, our options will be further limited to those we can come up with while under massive amounts of emotional distress.)

The default option right now is to just not say anything and hope this is one of those cases where Mariah lets our non-answer go. She does do that sometimes, mostly when she realizes we won’t give her the answer she seeks. (For example, she eventually gave up on making us admit that Habbalah were angels.) If we stay quiet long enough, maybe we can make that apply here.

“I’m waiting.” Her nails tap the table. While it’s a slightly different effect hearing it from this angle instead of our usual one, the meaning stays the same. No, she won’t let this one go. We need to give her something more than silence.

So what options do we have? Assuming we can’t just tell her.

(A good number of us recognize how irrational we’re being to draw the line here of all places. Most of us just don’t care. We’re not Elohite. We deserve to have a little bit of irrationality.)

Option one: We lie and accept the Dissonance on this. (We already had the Essence on hand when we came down to Hell.) This option is frighteningly appealing. So far, we only have the one note of Dissonance from learning Helltongue. One more doesn’t put us in danger quite yet. Why not use Helltongue for its intended purpose, just this once? It could stay a single lie. Unless Mariah decides to press the issue. That’s the problem right there. If we lie and Mariah presses, we have to either keep lying and therefore run up our Dissonance to potentially soul-endangering levels, or we come clean and find ourselves in the same situation, only now we’re closer to either taking Discord or Falling.

It wouldn’t work anyway, not after we’ve paused for so long. It’s too casual an answer for the amount of observable thought we’re putting into it. We’d have to think of a better lie.

Option two: We use a lesser truth (Someone we knew before contacted us via Celestial Tongues in a bid for assistance.) to imply a false conclusion (Our extra Essence is a one-time fluke). That has slightly more chance of working. If nothing else, the statement stands up better even after visible hesitation. Mariah is more likely to believe it at face value than the outright lie of option one. But as we attempt to form the words in Helltongue, we can feel the slippery slide into deceit and looming Dissonance. Perhaps if we had started as a Shedite and had native-level fluency with Helltongue, we could navigate these half-truths more cleverly. Or even if any of our chosen forms of creativity had involved more linguistic cunning.

But we’re not, and they don’t. We were made and raised in Heaven, and we were always more into visual artistry. Furthermore, we were raised by a Seraph, and our mother would be—not mad, but disappointed, if we accumulated Dissonance by lying on her behalf.

(It’s not really on her behalf though, is it? When we imagine the improbable meet-up between our mother and Mariah, our mother is not the one in danger. Our desire to keep this secret is almost entirely self-focused.)

So we go with option three, which is as equally terrible as the other two, just in a non-dissonant direction. We tell a truth, just not the one she asked for. We sing it in Angelic, even, where the option to lie doesn’t exist. “Please don’t make me answer that. I might lie if you do.”

It’s a bad response. Strategically, it sets us back. It reveals a vulnerability. It’s the best response we have.

We can sense Mariah’s reaction from this position, almost like we’re actually in a corporeal host. Her breath quickens. Her nails scratch against the table as she flexes her fingers. Her whole posture tenses. She doesn’t like our lack of answer. (Let’s be honest, she wouldn’t have liked any answer we gave.) We can’t feel her resonate just yet (Would the act itself even have a feeling?), but we’re sure she wants to. We disobeyed her. We showed weakness. Her infernal instincts should be screaming at her to punish us.

She doesn’t actually resonate us. Or if she tries, it doesn’t reach us. Her hands slam down on the table instead. Metal pieces jump and rattle. Something falls to the floor. “Bless it, Kira! I thought we were making progress!”

Yes, that was a mistake. (We had no good options. We don’t know what we should have done instead.) She’ll turn us in. No, she’ll make us Fall. It’s less risky for her to try and get rid of us that way and she now knows at least one topic that we are willing to lie about. All she has to do is get insistent until we either chose to confess or take on dissonance.

Mariah doesn’t say anything else. Not to us. She picks up whatever’s been dropped on the floor, sits back down, and gets back to work. She pretends like she isn’t furious. She is. There’s a growl in the back of her throat. Her toes tap on the floor, while the upper half of her body hunches over and tries desperately to focus on her repairs. She makes it through two or three of her doohickeys before the sounds in her throat turn to an an actually audible growl of disgust. She stands up. What’s in her hands drops to the table in a clatter. She strides over to the other corner of the room, and picks up something completely different. Something large, bulky, and soft.

“Fuck this. I need to get laundry done.”

—

Laundry, like public transit, is not a concept we ever thought needed to exist on the Celestial plane. At least, not when our experience of the Celestial plane was limited to the Heavenly half of it.

Of course, messes can and do happen upstairs. We’re not sure any reliever of Creation has fully fledged without being involved in the creation of at least one. We certainly have. We inadvertently trashed our Archangel’s studio just minutes before we fledged, and had to miss most of our fledging party to clean it up. It was a good lesson in the importance of cleaning up our messes and also the importance of environmental awareness. It was also how we met our best friend and discovered our favorite nickname. So, no complaints there.

(Since we’re considering messes in Heaven, it’s important to note that no matter how rowdy we [Cole and I] were in that studio, none of the actual art got ruined, nothing irreplaceable broke, and none of the potato bits ever attracted any stray bugs over from the Savannah.)

It’s not that maintenance work doesn’t exist in Heaven. There’s always one task or another to get done in every corner of every Word: Gardens to tend, machines to fix, archives to organize, all those small works that make life better for others and let those who do it derive a small pleasure from their effort.

(For some souls, eternal happiness might look like a non-stop party. For others, it can really be as simple as meditative tasks and appreciable end results. Or a mix of the two.)

What we don’t see a lot of in Heaven are chores for chores’ sake, laundry among them. First of all, how many of us even wear clothes? About half the major Choirs, including our own, don’t conveniently fit into human-style clothing. Of the rest, one outfit tends to work just fine for most celestials. Elohim tend to pick out neutral clothing ‘appropriate’ to their Word and stick with it until the benefits of changing outweigh the effort involved. The Malakim who even bother with celestial clothing tend to go for utility and comfort over aesthetics. (Unless they feel honor bound to a specific aesthetic. But those are exceptions.) Generally, it’s only Mercurians who pay attention to fashion and change up their looks regularly. Souls can go any which way with their clothing depending on their interests, although surprisingly few go nude. (The nudity option is equally available for anyone regardless of celestial anatomy.)

Anyways, even for those in Heaven who wear clothing, laundry still isn’t strictly necessary. Clothes don’t get dirty just by being worn the way their corporeal counterparts do. Stray dust or mess can just be brushed off. Larger spots and spills will just plain disappear if left alone for a few days. Any mark that stays around longer than that tends to be...thematic. As much a part of the outfit as the clothing itself. Splatters of pigment on an oil painter’s shirt, streaks of wet clay on a potter’s apron, touches of dirt on the knees of a gardener’s overalls. The stains become a declaration of identity, an ‘is’ rather than a ‘looks like’.

(This also seems to be the case for non-clothing textiles as well. No place we’ve ever been in the Halls of Creation has ever been short on clean towels.)

If there’s laundry in Heaven, it’s not out of necessity. Nothing stays dirty long enough to need it.

Now, there may be laundry in Heaven as part of a corporeal preparation course. We picture a sort of Home Economics type class targeted towards young angels about to take their on first Role. If said class did exist, it was definitely an elective. We never took it. And neither did anyone we know. Most angels who do eventually learn how to do corporeal laundry probably just figure out the most common local method on the fly.

(Plus, electric washing machines weren’t even being sold back when we first arrived on the corporeal. So, anything we might have learned in Heaven would have been obsolete within a decade or two. At least for our specific location.)

The walk to the laundromat is remarkable, if only because it’s our first time outside that one building since our arrival in Hell. Automobiles streak by unmuffled on one side, while vendors shout at the passing pedestrians from another. Thanks to the lack of echoes, it’s quieter here on this street than it is on the first floor. Still everything is loud enough to overpower the subtle, interesting noises. Bits and pieces of barely-intelligible conversation float past us. The walk itself barely gets started before Mariah pushes a door open. An automated voice welcomes us to the Suds ‘n’ Sprockets laundromat, home to sector 12-G’s least lethal washing machines.

(We wonder about the driers.)

We almost expect to hear background music, maybe the Hellish equivalent of doo-wop standards or early rock an roll piped in through tinny speakers, but we don’t. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to play music here. The noises from the running machines render the footsteps in this place barely audible. The wet and watery percussion of the washer, the tumble thumps of dryers, and the buzz of the surely fluorescent lights above us make up their own soundtrack.

The weight of the dirty clothing aside, Mariah moves through this place fairly relaxed by her standards. Her posture is neither overly hunched-in and avoidant nor overly stiff and performative. That in itself reveals a lot about who else populates this place. Nobody’s opinion here matters to Mariah.

As she walks by, we catch the idle chatter of a few voices. Everyone speaks timidly enough that we realize that most, if not all, of the human-sounding footsteps here belong to actual human souls. Likewise, the claws that skitter about mostly belong to demonlings. There’s maybe one tell-tale Djinn shuffle in the mix. No, we imagine most full-sized demons find someone else to do their laundry for them.

Mariah taps out the signal. We can speak if we feel so inclined.

Still, we keep our voice soft, and our language completely in Helltongue. We trust Mariah to look out for her own interests and not trick us into revealing ourselves, but some precautions are just sensible, even for a Creationer. “Is it safe to speak here because no one can hear us or because you don’t care if anyone here does?”

“A little of both. Mostly the second. I’ll use the machines down at the far end, and no one here knows me well enough or is powerful enough to cause trouble. Just keep away from your native language, and we’ll be fine.”

‘Fine’ is not how we would describe anything in Hell, but we accept that speaking here will probably not get us caught even if someone overhears Mariah talking to no one. This is Technology. Mariah talking to someone else via an invisible walkie-talkie or whatnot probably isn’t unheard of, if she were the type to have access to those kinds of devices.

The relative social ease of this place must make up for a lot. Mariah doesn’t seem to mind the tedium of laundry and—okay—whatever that sudden, violent banging is. We hear a resigned sigh (not from Mariah), and then a sharp electric crackle. The banging stops.

“Did someone just shock a washing machine into submission?”

“It happens,” Mariah says, unfazed. “Washing machine goes berserk and the employee on duty has to go tase it before it fucks over their lethality stats. Someone probably triggered the anti-mod measures. The culprit will probably get kicked out if they’re even still here.”

Our minds boggle. So, we suppose anti-mod measures make sense. This laundromat is full of machinery to wash and dry clothing. This laundromat is in Tartarus, which is populated by Vapulans who, when given a choice, do not leave anything mechanical well-enough alone. We can picture the arms race between the demon (or demons) who run this place and set up defenses on their machines and their customers who can’t help but try and make modifications for fun or profit.

On cue, we hear a weaselly voice protest. There’s no audible signs of extra limbs, claws, or vestigial wings, so it’s probably a human soul getting blamed here. “No, my socks are still wet! You wouldn’t leave me with we—”

There’s a distant thump as the soul lands outside the door. Then another, softer thump as their laundry follows it.

“Must have been a first strike. If he’s smart, he won’t try that again anytime soon.” Mariah makes her own thump as she sets her laundry down. “Pass me over some of that essence.”

“For what?” We’re not sure about this. Unlike us, Mariah can use her apply her essence towards many ends, most of which we would prefer not to encourage her in.

“These machines aren’t free. Detergent costs, too.”

We sigh. “How much?”

“Three total. One for the washer, one for the dryer, and then an extra essence for a new detergent card. Mine seems to have gone missing.”

“Expensive laundry.”

(If Heaven did have laundry that needed done on a regular basis and therefore had laundromats, we imagine they would work similarly to how bars, coffee shops, or other services already do. Pay an essence in exchange for free use of the facilities until the job was done. That assumes there was even a need to pay in the first place. Trade would be the Word most likely to charge as well as the one most likely to provide extra services. (If laundry did exist in Heaven, would dry cleaning for all those fancy suits also exist?) Most other Words would probably have fully-stocked laundry facilities freely available for Servitors. As for Creation, we would probably spend most of our time coming up with Rube Goldbergesque laundry contraptions and repurpose any actual washing machines into dye vats.)

(Oh, and our washing machines would never attack anyone. Anti-mod measures or otherwise.)

“You’re telling me.” Mariah’s voice turns suddenly serious. “Consider the essence payback for what that Impudite stole from me. Or that you’re helping your host, if you really meant that arrangement honestly.”

Ahh, so that’s what she wants to talk about. We wonder if Mariah really does need to do laundry right now or if it’s merely an excuse to have this specific conversation and to have it away from possible Damp Mop Djinn interruptions.

(And if it’s the second, is our own wishful thinking to call that Elohite behavior? Or is it just Habbie-typical social maneuvering to let her avoid showing off her uncertainty? Not everything is a sign.)

“Well?” Mariah’s toe taps against a hard floor. (Same type of material as the supply closet, based on volume and pitch.)

Passing essence to Mariah through the crystal feels like trying to pass a cooling glass sphere off to someone else while fully mitted-up, but we manage. We give her three Essence in total, a third of our full capacity and just enough for Mariah to do a complete cycle. That’s our statement of intent, whatever Mariah makes of it.

(There’s really no point in hoarding it. Beyond difficult-to-time escape attempts, what is there to spend Essence on in Hell anyway?)

(Listening and laundry, apparently.)

The skittering of demonling claws up the nearby wall of machine cuts off further out loud observations we might make on the topic. Instead, we go neutral.

“What are you washing, anyway?”

“Clothes.”

If we had access to eyes right now, we would roll them. “Clearly. But what kind and why now?”

“You know, just normal clothes. Shirt, pants, jackets. Socks, although I’d probably be better off feeding them to the Paper Shredder and buying new ones, for as much as these machines have a tendency to lose them. Some towels. Stuff everybody—” Her sentence cuts off. “You don’t wear clothing in your celestial form, do you?”

“Not typically.” We haven’t been solid enough for actual fabric to reliably hang off of us since we were about five forces or so. “It’s mostly hand stuff, if anything. Bracelets or rarely gloves.”

“Huh. I guess you’re similar to Shedim that way.” Mariah moves her laundry from her bag to the machine. Some of it makes gentle metallic clangs when it hits the back wall of the washer. “Must be nice not to have to worry about that.”

“Strictly speaking, clothing is optional for anybody on the celestial.”

“You must have never had your Heart stored in a vat of acid.” Mariah says dryly.

(Our Heart is surely where we last left it, on a corner of a desk in our studio deep in the Halls of Creation. We used to keep it in the a large central Heartroom, right next to our friend Cole’s, but, after it moved its Heart over to the Groves and a couple of very unfortunately-timed visits from Judgment, we had to bring it somewhere less conspicuous.)

“Never,” we agree.

“Or had to deal with the aftermath of a printer explosion.”

“Not in Hea—” we catch ourself, if Mariah isn’t referring to us as a Kyriotate, we need to not directly reference our nature here. “not on the celestial plane, no.”

Mariah barks out a laugh. It’s a brief, sharp sound that dulls quickly into solemnity. “I don’t really care where the Essence came from. Just don’t think of using it to escape.” The door to the washing machine shuts with a hard slam. “I’m letting you get away with this. Don’t make a fool out of me.”

If only she would let us get away in a more literal sense. Hell is no place for an angel. “I won’t. So long as our arrangement lasts.”

Mariah cranks a dial, and then a loud disruptive beep sounds from the machine before we can continue. “So, forever, then?” she says, as though she hasn’t yet learned the temporary nature of everything except perhaps the Symphony itself.

Water fills up the machine. It almost drowns out our sigh. “Everything ends eventually.” We manage to keep the wistfulness out of our voice by reminding ourself that most of those eventual endings are bad ones. “Until someone else ends it, though. Or until you try to dispose of me. Including any attempts to corner me into taking dissonance. Fair enough?”

One of Mariah’s claws taps on a metallic surface in front of her. She makes a show of considering our offer. “Fair enough. So long as you answer me directly when I ask if you’ve made any escape attempts. If you want to lie about that, you deserve to deal with the dissonance. Deal?”

“Deal.”

We imagine more than a few Words in Heaven would dislike the so-called arrangement we’ve made with Mariah, from very fact that we’ve de facto agreed to be a demon’s prisoner (glad not to be a Malakite!) to the the number of loopholes Mariah could plow a Vapulan tank through in our sloppily made verbal contract. Luckily, we don’t belong to any of those Words. We’re Creation, the Word with (what we’re told are) the loosest standards in Heaven. All we have to do is make the best of what our circumstances (and Mariah) are willing to give us.

In the meantime, we can listen to Mariah monologue about the best way to tinker with the machines here without either triggering the anti-mod measures or getting herself kicked out before her clothes are dry.

Chapter 21: The forces have a casual check-in.

Chapter Text

When Mariah finally puts us back in the case (Our case? Are we ready to apply the first-person possessive to that object? We might as well, considering that we essentially live there now.) we’re glad to have a bit of space to ourself at last. Being walked about by our Habbie captor-slash-host has undoubtedly been educational, but we’ve also found it too personally intimate for our own comfort. Like being crammed in too tightly on a crowded train with at least one fellow passenger who insists on starting up a conversation at random intervals.

(We do like interacting with potential or recurring Hosts sometimes…just not while we’re in them.)

Currently, that Habbalite prepares to leave us for the corporeal in pursuit of her next quota. This gives us an appropriately quiet moment (no conversation expected, no emotions currently running through us) to do a check-in before Mariah leaves us with her signature parting gift.

We hear her motions as she changes into a going-away outfit (freshly laundered courtesy of our essence). One of our minds marvels at those nuances we can pick out now. For example, we can tell that Mariah changes into different kinds of outfits when she leaves versus when she gets back. Her usual clothing in Hell involves button-up shirts. Now, she changes into a simpler shirt that can goes on over her head. Her going-out shoes hit with a duller thud compared to the sharper clip of the ones she usually wears.

Neither of us [Mariah nor myself] are human, but the information we’ve collected while we’ve ridden around with her has humanized her to most of our minds, and the plurality of us think that’s for the better. No, we can’t forget that Mariah’s our captor or that she’s about to set out to fill another quota—that is, to capture yet more of us [Kyriotates] to drag down into Hell to face a fate of pain and unethical experimentation. But we [me, collectively] already knew those facts about her. What we needed to learn was how to stay friendly towards her while keeping within the bounds of honesty. How to see her as a person, and not just an enemy.

As a person worth saving?

Wait, that’s not the right angle for us to take. We’re not a Malakite or a Judge to put a priority on ‘worth’ or ‘deserves’. We help the people we can usefully help. Most of the time, we clear a path our host wants to walk down. Other times, when the person isn’t the greatest, we focus on the kind of help that can also encourage a turnabout. Mariah is available. That’s what matters. That’s why we’re attempting to help her.

As a person we can save?

Maybe? We admit we have a bias here. Mariah is who we have with us. She’s who we can talk to without immediately signing up for a worse set of circumstances. So it makes sense that we want to assign meaning to any little gestures that might point to an Elohite waiting to come out. Not once this visit has Mariah Punished us with her resonance. She sublimated her urge to lash out at us over keeping a secret from her. She calmed us down when we freaked out about her self-mutilation.

(Counterpoint: She engaged in that very Habbalite practice of self-mutilation in the first place.)

What of those behaviors were done in consideration of us? What of it is her attempt to prove superiority over us? What of it is pragmatism? And of the latter category, is that pragmatism a sign of divine objectivity in development or merely an enlightened expression of self-interest?

We could spend whole ducks' worth of time in speculation, but in the end, we’ll only find out if and when Mariah chooses to make a Redemption attempt. We don’t save Mariah. We help Mariah save herself. That’s the joy and annoyance of Free Will right there.

“Kira, I’m heading out!”

One of our voices surfaces long enough to follow-up with a farewell. The radio is tuned back to the disco station. She must have remembered our preference from the last time. “Stay safe out there.”

Mariah scoffs. “Don’t worry about me.”

She says that, but after the door closes, we hear a few very brief, very faint celebratory sounds from Mariah, similar to when she first saw our catcher and again when we first spoke to her in her native language. The plurality of us take this as a sign of progress. Our (honest) expression of concern means more to Mariah than she cares to show us.

(A reflection of that thought: What kind of progress has Mariah made with us, and to what end?)

(Is that even the right frame to look through? So long as we don’t die or Fall, we’ll deal with anything else later.)

Her noises fade out into the hallway. How far does she go? Just away from the secured area, or does she go down to the first floor to disappear *poof* in the middle of that oceanic crowd? Or maybe she walks out of the office and takes a deep breath of that fresh (sarcasm) Tartarus air before heading back to her corporeal destination of North America.

(We presume that’s where she focuses her efforts, based on our own geographic posting prior to our Kyrio-napping and Mariah not having acquired that air of multicultural ease that celestials with wide-ranging Earth experience seem to accumulate.)

Wherever she leaves to go do her horrible thing, she’ll assuredly stay gone for a little bit. DJ Magic Mik is in the middle of its morning show and we figure there will be couple more before the first demonling flock is due for the inaugural storeroom scavenge. We keep a mind focused on the outside room for time-keeping and guard duty, and let other minds kick back and get comfortable on the Contemplation Couch, which is a concept we just made up. It sounds more fun than our literal situation.

(Some of our minds get comfortable. Others are in a more artistic mental space, sorting through new information scraps to and adding them to our collage in progress.)

What do we think about this host situation? Are we going to have that postponed freak-out now?

There’s a lot we dislike: What Mariah did to her celestial form. The lack of control. The way the combined sensation of movement from inside a body and the continued presence of a mind feels uncomfortably close to a Shedite experience. If Mariah could somehow kit together a parrot-looking (or better yet, a crow!) robot to perch on her shoulder and hold our crystal, that would be better. Or maybe not better, but more comfortable for us.

(We should consider whether asking for a different case would be a worthwhile expenditure of good will. Or does a request like that need to wait until some notable milestone? Should we suggest it to Mariah for a five-year anniversary gift, assuming we could actually tell when that would be?)

(Also, would said suggestion present more of a danger for us and Mariah than the current set up, given that a mechanical shoulder-bird would be objectively groovy and subject to Technological prodding.)

For all we dislike parts of the hosting arrangement, we admit there are upsides. Rough-start aside, Mariah trusts us more for our having defined our intended relationship to her. She wouldn’t carry us about and let us see what her life is like outside this room otherwise. And as uncomfortable and stifling as being walked around has been, it’s still less aggressively boring than our life stuck in here.

More importantly, we have context now. Beautiful, beautiful context. We’re not, by any means, happy, but we have a touch of elation at the opportunity to build an aural picture of a world bigger than the space inside these four (we presume) walls and the petty schemes of the demons who gossip here.

It reminds us of better times in our life. (Okay, any time before hitting Tartarus was a better time, so more specificity is needed.) Specifically, it reminds us of our first few days on the corporeal and our first time experiencing the Symphony through our hosts’ senses. We took over the bodies of a half-dozen birds and spread ourselves through the town. One bird flew high enough to see a larger picture—grids of streets laid out, the art college right in the middle, walking paths, the park, the shops, the railroad tracks that divided the town into the “good” and “bad” parts. Our other, smaller birds we scattered throughout several neighborhoods, the better to observe humans as individuals. Up until that point, our experiences of the corporeal world had been second-hand, collected from conversations we’d had with Angels and blessed souls. We had some context, but nothing before or since has compared to that rush of our first direct observations, our realization that the corporeal world around us could simultaneously be both immense and deeply personal. A shiver united our bodies as we realized each bird we were in, each creature on the ground or in the trees, each human we saw moving about the city had its own unique set of experiences. Yet, like two streets on the grid or two lines of a drawing, any of those perspectives could run parallel or go perpendicular or intersect with the others in some unexpected, but delightful way. Any two people we observed on opposite sides of town could be connected by some small granule of the same experience and never even be aware of it.

(We may be getting carried away with the nostalgia.)

Right. Where were we?

The connection is that after spending so much time in one spot, we finally have a sense of this facility and a world that’s bigger than just us and Mariah. Said world might be literal Hell—ugly, horrific, and we do not recommend it one bit, but getting that sense of more-than-us serves as a vital reminder of why we fledged as we did, and why we can’t accept a Fall.

It’s also what ultimately outweighs all the discomfort of being walked around. We can tolerate that sensation if it means we get to see more of the world Mariah lives in. It’s better for helping our makeshift host, and better for accomplishing our other objectives.

Okay, so what are those exactly? In order, please.

Getting out this Force Catcher alive and divine.

Getting Mariah on the road to redemption.

Getting our revenge on this place and its damned quotas.

We could burn this place to the ground.

We’ll we couldn’t, not in our current state at least. We could encourage Mariah to burn this place to the ground. It would be satisfying. Oops, no more prison to hold your future test subjects, sorry about that, Vapulans.

What good would that do?

This facility would no longer exist. That’s all the good it needs.

And then another one would open and fill the vacuum the hypothetical destruction of this one created. If there’d even be a vacuum in the first place. The test-subject industry in Tartarus can’t be a monopoly. Some of the demons here care too deeply about market share for that to be the case. Yes, witnessing this place turn into a giant pile of rubble would be satisfying. So too, would imagining the fallout that could come down on the demons who run this place, but in the bigger picture, attempting to take out the whole facility directly is too much risk for too little long-term reward.

We’re Creation. We take risks.

We take risks when we know that the result will be better for having done it. Or when we have enough room to play that failure won’t lead to disaster. Neither of those apply here.

Still. This place. A smoldering pile of rubble. Think about it.

If we burn this place down who do we actually help?

The damned souls? Probably not. Many of them chose to be here, and life seems to be pretty cushy here compared to other things the Vapulans would do with them. Destroying this place might leave them worse off. No matter what happens, none of them will escape. They’re damned souls after all. Nothing shy of setting Armageddon in motion will get them out of Hell.

(Kicking off Armageddon would probably be a disproportionate response to our situation.)

(You think?)

So, no, we’re not helping the damned souls.

The demons? Yeah, maybe. We bet most of those demons would be happy to see this place burn down. Unlike the human souls, they would have a chance to escape. And then what? How would that balance out in the sense of greater goods and lesser evils? Not very well. Most would certainly make it back to their Princes. Those without a Prince to serve would probably take to their vessel (or a Host) and go Renegade. There’s a small chance that a few might seek redemption, and that’s always a good thing, but overall we find the vision of freeing a few dozen otherwise contained demons onto the Symphony at large to be…uncomfortable. Like maybe we shouldn’t encourage that to happen.

(And that’s before we speculate on how we would explain that to Judgment.)

What about the angels, then? They’re the primary reason we chose not to make an escape attempt, even after we built up enough essence to try. Now we know exactly where and how locked down they are. Can we rescue the angels imprisoned here and still get out alive? If we can’t, then what? Should we give up on them and we prioritize ourself and Mariah? We don’t think so. Not yet, anyway. We’re the one chance they’ll have of a rescue. No one else is coming. The cavalry doesn’t stop in Hell.

What can we do for them?

The angels, more than anyone else here are tracked inventory; off-counts lead to facility lockdowns until the missing ones are accounted for. Any freedom of movement for the non-Kyriotate angels gets tempered hard. Artifacts bind them to obey their demonic handlers, and this facility—this floor especially—is covered in passive security measures, to keep the Game out, yes, but also to prevent all of us captives from just leaving for the corporeal the moment a leash slips.

That sounds discouraging.

(It is discouraging.)

But is it, though? All the Technology meant to keep us angels isolated and bolted down also leaves the demons here not nearly so wary of angels as they should be. The context makes them see us [captive angels] less as sentient beings and more as hazardous materials that need to be properly stored until it’s time for use. Incidents may happen from time to time, but nothing so serious as to actually require anyone to submit an actual incident report.

(Side objective: Mess up this place enough on the way out to require them to file an incident report.)

The demons on this floor are too sure of themselves around angels, and Mariah is no exception. No, she may just be the example. She’s the Reliever-sized Habbalite who wanted a Heaven-born angel as a pet and picked up the first friendly Kyriotate she caught like a stray off the street. Now, she mistakes one who currently behaves well and offers her help for one who is properly contained and controlled.

(Think of the difference between a well-trained domesticated dog and a theoretically tamed wolf, and that’s approximately the gap we’re speaking of.)

We can use that. We can take our limited resources—our ears, our knowledge of Helltongue, and the small situational differences that separate a pet from inventory and use that to make a cavalry.

We are isolated, but we are not alone, and we are not helpless.

And they are not prepared.

Chapter 22: Raye listens to the radio.

Chapter Text

Welcome back to The Majik Mik Morning Musick Show. I’m your host DJ Magik Mik and this is my co-host Dingbat. We’re here playing your favorite disco hits, and have we got some great ones for you.

Hits like a baseball bat, am I right?

Our lawyers recommend we refrain from mentioning baseball bats on air. Next up this great hit from the ZeeBeez—

Or the Zombies for those of you not hip with the times—

Flaying the Live.

“You can tell by the way I use my walk I’m a Samingan….”

—

“Stupid Punisher left the radio playing.”

“And it’s the disco station even. I guess she’s finally embracing the whole Evil thing.”

“Always thought she took the Angel-in-Hell concept a bit too seriously.”

“Well, she’s Habbalite. If we bothered to ask, she’d probably have some divine excuse to explain music choice.”

“God sent me here to punish all the weak sinners. So, here’s some Disco for you all to ‘enjoy’ in my absence.”

“With that Discord, she has to find some other way to Punish us when we dig through her shit.”

“Oh, those poor people! I can’t resonate them. They might feel bad!”

“Why do you think she’s got assigned to that job? She’d be useless for anything else.”

“Data Entry? Target Practice? Scrubbing toilets?”

“A Gremlin could do those jobs.”

“Exactly.”

—

Hey, Chantal!

Hey, Dingbat!

Have you ever wanted to relive history? Undergo the great migration of a soon-to-be Demon Prince and his posse from the depths of Kronos’s Archives out to the wastelands of Hell.

Of course, because I am a hopeless nerd exactly like our listeners out in Tartarus!

That’s great because now you can! And if you are a nerd exactly like our listeners in Tartarus, you’ll appreciate the full 16-color graphics and MIDI sound effects.

The Organ Trail. Coming February for the Vapulore 64. Get it ahead of the bloodrush.

—

“I swear to Lucifer I saw it in here. Pentagram-head screwdriver, suitable for 5/9 inch screws.”

“Maybe someone got to it before you.”

“Who else do you think would need that particular combination?”

“It’s more common than you think.”

“Rude of them.”

“Whatever, we can let that person deal with the printer.”

“And what about the blood spurting out on the carpet?”

“Not our problem. Let the janitor take care of that.”

—

We are giving away two concert tickets to the fifteenth caller to see Le Freak featuring Infernal Carport and The Scammps at Studio Dynomite right here in downtown Perdition! You do not want to miss out on this, folks! It’ll be a show for the ages!

Tickets are non-transferable. Winner must be at least seven forces and be in good standing with their Prince. Winner is responsible for all transportation costs and procurement of all necessary border permits. NDKO does not guarantee that the acts mentioned on the tickets will be the acts that show up at the venue. NDKO takes no responsibility for any damages to health or property. We especially take no responsibility if your tickets wind up getting taken from you by three gremlins in a trenchcoat.

—

“Owww…wowowoow.”

“Stupid. Five forces means you can’t fly anymore.”

“You PUSHED me out of the air vents!”

“Oops.”

“ONTO the Shocky-box!”

“Oops.”

“Oops?”

“Oops.”

“So this has nothing to do with the incident with the pizza and the back-up generator?”

“Nothing at all, Dingus. I got the anchovy smell out of my fur eventually. And it’s not my problem if they mark you for having Calabite tendencies.”

“I do not have Calabite tendencies!”

“You better not. Now, shut up and help me with this.”

—

Have your documentation ready, and let’s hope your forgeries are good ones! Smuggling rumors at the Stygia-Shal Mari Border are causing crossings to take extra time this week. Delays of up to twelve hours could be expected. I hope our listeners stuck in line have fresh batteries for their radios! Seriously guys, we need the ratings.

In Tartarus, a derailment on the D line has left seventeen dead and forty-nine injured. Lingering explosions are keeping the tracks closed for the foreseeable future. So, anyone heading into any of the District 12 sectors will need to find an alternate route. Or maybe look into getting yourself a car, if you’re still relying on public transportation. Losers.

Ahem.

Speaking of cars, construction work on the new Cocytus bridge on the Genius Prince Vapula expressway continues to reroute traffic onto local roads and the IP29. Better hope you left early. Or that your supervisor doesn’t eat the tardy. If you can’t figure out how to get to work on time, maybe you deserve to be part of your Prince’s next experiment.

This has been Kip Kipling with the latest traffic report. Next up, we have Hot Goss with Susie Q. Susie!

Enough with that boring traffic report Kip, let’s get back to the hot goss. My sources tell me that one very charismatic Baroness of the Media was seen walking around with a smoking-hot new Lilim on her arm. Want to find out more? I’ll tell you right after this commercial break.

(Just kidding Kip, of course we love you.)

—

“Why would a recording device need essence?”

“Wait, what?”

“There’s essence in there. Take my glasses. Look. See that?”

“Huh. You’re right. Didn’t you take that reliquary from her after that one incident interfered with your experiment?”

“I did. She must have gotten a new one. Pass those back would you?”

“Whatever?”

“So, now the question is how good is her power source? Looking at the case, it could go either way, depending on how much of it is dedicated to holding the battery. Assuming decent engineering on that Habbie’s part, and the inclusion of several features, it could have an acceptable Essence Density by Volume.”

“EDV isn’t everything.”

“Of course it’s not! There’s also EDM, Optimal and Compressive Capacity, Recovery Rate, Bleedthrough—”

“Yes. Yes. I passed my Essential Engineering class too. It’s probably pretty terrible. She’s only using it to power a recording device.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. Remember Raul’s booklight?”

“Was that one that was powered by a miniature nuclear reactor? Or the one powered by hellfire fumes?”

“The first.”

“Ah. Never could keep the explosions straight.”

“So there might just be a good, strong power source in there. It would be a shame not to put it to better us—owwww!”

“What about that?”

“Oh, that’s simple! All we need to do is disrupt the electrical field, disable it, and open up the outer shell. Then, we can get our hands on the power source.”

“But I don’t have hands.”

“Or claws. Whatever. Now we just need to figure out an opportune time to work at it when no one else can interfere. When’s the next Game audit?”

“Not for a while yet.”

“Pity.”

—

That song was ‘Hot Stuff’ by the Sheol sensation the BBQ band. Or were they Haagentian? I’m sure one of you geeks will call our producer and let it know. The song before that was “It’s Raining Goats” by the Weather Ghouls. Always a crowd favorite!

Coming up after the commercial break, we have another great hour of music heading your way featuring Sister Sledgehammer, Gorier Gaylord, Bony Em and more! Stay tuned!

—

“Look, the lasers are working as intended from an explosion standpoint. I’m just having a problem with the sound effects.”

“Sound effects?”

“There’s a specific sound that laser beams are supposed to make, and these don’t. They’re just silent. It’s right there in the requirements.”

“Maybe convince your patron that the silent lasers are better. It’s more stealthy, anyway?”

“Forget stealth. It needs to be cool! And terrifying! What’s the point of a laser that doesn’t go ‘pew pew pew’?”

“Yes, but in space? Where there’s a vacuum?”

“What difference does that make?”

“Oh, forget it.”

—

Shelly, can you tell us more about your experience as the first Shedite centerfold for Firefeather magazine?

Oh, it was great. Of course, I was really nervous when I first walked into the studio for my shoot—that’s photoshoot for those of you not in the industry—but everyone was so, so friendly, and I had no problem baring it all. It was a blast, and everyone on set ended up having a lot of fun.

So tell us, what exactly does a Shedite bare for Perdition’s premiere porno mag?

I can show you that right here, Mik!

That’s um…that’s definitely a lot of tentacles! Dingbat, make sure we get the footage for our Majik Mikateers!

Remember for the low, low price of two Essence a month you can be a Majik Mikateer and get all of our best extras mailed directly to you! Exclusive outtakes with our special guests. Dingbat’s signature parodies! Interviews with your favorite NDKO dee-jays! You receive something new every month!

Well, almost every month! When our producer gets around to it.

—

“Give me a paw would you, Tank?”

“Oof. You sure this is worth it?”

“I bet we can get a good price for it.”

“Not that good a price if they’re storing it here.”

“Well, then we’ll trade it up. Like that one imp who found a pushpin and then managed to swap it for a hex screw which it then traded for a miniature ball-peen hammer. Eventually it got itself a fully working mecha body.”

“Yeah, and then had it taken away.”

“Whatever. We’ll get a better price for this than anything we can pull out of the scrap heap. It’s safer too. You remember what happened to Squiggle?”

“Who?”

“Never mind. It was funny. For me, not for it.”

“What was it? Tell me!”

“You lack the ethereal forces to appreciate it.”

“I have TWO ethereal forces, same as you.”

“Oh fine. I’m a bit fuzzy on the details, but it involved a carburetor, a model of a dihydrogen monoxide molecule, and an magnetic imaging doohickey.”

“Oh, I remember now. Didn’t the pile just collapse on it?”

“Hmmmph, I knew you wouldn’t appreciate the humor. Now let’s get out of here before someone comes in and catches us.”

—

Those of you made under the sign of the Serpent, watch out for flying objects in your future. Impending doom might just come with a hidden opportunity, so keep your head up and stay optimistic. Don’t be afraid to venture out of your comfort zone!

Now for those of you made under the Tower, you’ll want to avoid caffeinated beverages this week. Those jitters won’t do you any good when an unexpected situation arises. Take some time out to relax and recover.

Temptresses should be careful with finances. If you’re saving that Essence up for something special, keep your eyes on that goal. Avoid Impudites and impulse purchases—Wait who am I kidding? You need to spend all your essence on today’s sponsor:

Soul-Ban Sunglasses! The hottest shades this side of Sheol! Now available in seventy-five unique colors! Collect them all!

—

“Yet another case of tracking sensors ruined. What is this? The third set in three years?”

“Yes. That’s what happens when you store delicate electronic equipment in the same room as the Paper Shredder.”

“When’s the Djinn going to get tired of it?”

“Not soon enough. It’s been YEARS.”

“It’s not even all that useful. We could just use the incinerator for document disposal. We don’t need a Cal—one of those around.”

“Do you want make the official complaint and try and get it past Tizzy? Because I’m not reporting it in.”

“Too much paperwork.”

“Then SHUT UP about it!”

—

This portion of The Majik Mik Morning Musick Show is brought to you by I Can’t Believe It’s Almost Coffee! The crunch is the flavor crystals! The pop puts the pep in your step! Ask for it by name wherever hot beverages are sold.

Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! Pop! Pop! Pop! Just one sip and you won’t stop!

—

“There it is! The recording device with the huge battery.”

“Not being a nerd, I’ll take your word about the battery. Has anyone picked up any of the actual recordings yet? Now those might be interesting.”

“There were rumors going around about the Game confiscating a box of tapes during their last audit but nothing more since. Might not have been anything too incriminating on them.”

“Or maybe they’re just holding on to it for a more opportune time.”

“Or they didn’t think she was worth squeezing for a bribe. Everyone knows that’s what those ‘Game Audits’ are all about, and she can barely hold on to the tools she has.”

“Speaking of, would you come over and help me get this drawer unlocked? Someone Needs this screwdriver. And on your way over, turn off that blessed radio. For Lilith’s sake, who thinks disco is appropriate choice of music for a Technology facility?”

“It’s kind of catchy though. And I mean disco…disco-tech…the connection is there. Why isn’t it more popular in Tartarus?”

“Please, don’t start.”

“Do you remember? Something, something night of Dismember….”

“Please, stop.”

“And here I thought Lilim were supposed to be fun. What are you going to do? Invoke a Geas?”

“Considering how many favors you still owe me for the Five Mile Incident, I just might. Now search the back corner and see if you can find any of the actual recordings.”

—

Tchk-tchk-tchk-thck. Tchk-tchk-tchk-thck. Tchk-tchk-tchk-thck.

“Huh? I think that recording device picking up a stray signal.”

“I swear, if that Punisher’s shitty engineering interferes with the remote targeting of my blenderbot I will—”

Tchk-tchk-tchk-thck. Tchk-tchk-tchk-thck. Tchk-tchk-tchk-thck.

“Give it a good whack. Always works for me.”

“Ah! Fuck that electrical field is annoying.”

“It shut up though.”

—

“Be quick about it. Mariah’s going to be back soon.”

“Already? It’s only been a month! And not even an emergency! Is she still trying to prove that she’s competent enough to earn herself a better assignment?”

“Like that would ever happen. No, I mean, someone saw her in the Central Lab a few days ago.”

“Oh, there. Well then, there no point in rushing. She'll probably be there awhile.”

“Or it could be in the next fifteen minutes. We don’t know.”

“So it goes. It’ll be interesting to see how Tizzy reacts when Mariah delivers her report.”

“Will it though? Tizzy isn’t going to throw away an assistant if it means she actually has to do the work herself. I bet there’s going to just be some grumbling, and then maybe a few months of printer maintenance.”

“Point.”

“Anyway, keep a lookout on that door will you. And maybe turn that radio on so no one can overhear us.”

—

Well, that about wraps our show up for today. This is been DJ Majick Mik reminding you on behalf of our team here at NDKO to keep it disco. We’ll see you tomorrow. Same groovy time. Same groovy place.

Chapter 23: Meanwhile, Mariah takes some downtime.

Chapter Text

One of the hard won lessons Mariah took from her first few hunting expeditions was to not catch too many specimens too quickly. Instead, it was best to space them out as much as her quota allowed. The reasons were twofold:

First, even when dealing with Outcasts and the kinds of Kyriotates who tended towards solo-work, too many disappearances in the same area within the same short timespan would call in more scrutiny than any fieldworker needed. And when looking at celestial-level timescales, which even young angels like Mariah needed to do, time and distance were both closer than they appeared.

Second, as past experience had taught her, the faster Mariah filled her quota, the shorter her deadlines became. Not that Procurement would have sufficient external demand for the Dominations, but Tizzy would take the opportunity demand a surplus from an assistant to serve as insurance against having to do fieldwork herself when something—or someone—out in the world inevitably came along to incapacitate her assistants. Well, Tizzy’s previous assistants, anyway. Mariah had done this job almost a decade longer than any of her known predecessors, and that mattered to her, even if no one else would acknowledge it. As dangerous and terrible as it was, she was good at this job.

So, when Mariah was one Kyriotate closer to her quota—no name given or requested, smoky quartz catcher, nothing interesting to say—she took the opportunity to relax for a little bit. She had a rented hotel room for privacy, cheap coffee from the convenience store to warm her up, and some inane human-made drivel on TV to keep her company, or at least provide some background noise. Mediocre as all these corporeal niceties were, it was still a blessed sight better than the Hell-side breakroom.

Mariah leaned back against the headboard. She sipped her coffee and winced only slightly at its bitterness. Did her fellow Punishers take their coffees black because they liked it or did they do so as a display of false strength? Her whim told her it was the latter. Hypocrites.

If only Kira could be here. Maybe one day, when the Kyriotate understood her place better, Mariah could bring her along on one of these hunts. It was a pleasant thought, but ridiculous. Keeping Kira in Mariah’s possession was the priority, and bringing her up to the corporeal would inevitably cause more problems than pleasures. Honestly-meant hell-side promises aside, Kira would attempt to escape once the daily essence started to accumulate. Mariah was sure of that. The proof was in how Kira could have attempted to convince Mariah to bring her along. Kira would have if she could have done so without the risk of dissonance. But she never tried. Therefore, she couldn’t.

Kira was not nearly so clever as she thought she was. Her obligation to speak only truth in Hell meant that even Kira’s silence made statements and provided constant invitations for Mariah to read between the lines everything Kira never wanted to say. It was a weakness in the Kyriotate’s manipulations, though not one Mariah would fault her for. The situation forced weakness. Navigating it was a test of its own. Every time Kira spoke, she had a choice. Would she choose the disadvantageous truth, the telling silence, or the damning but strategic lie? With Kira, it was always the first two and never the third. It was what made Kira less unworthy than any of the other specimens.

And, of course, it was a given that Kira tried to manipulate her. Hell ran on manipulation, and part of Mariah took comfort in the knowledge that a Heaven-angel would choose to participate rather than pretend to the sort of pure and hollow holiness usually characteristic of Heaven-angels, but the attempted manipulation also cast a shadow over their relationship. No matter how much Mariah wished it otherwise, she could only truly trust one thing about Kira. So long as she remained in Hell, Kira would be dissonance-bound to tell the truth. So, Mariah would be smart to trust that, and only that.

Which was unfortunate. It would be nice if Kira could be trustworthy enough to merit trips to the Corporeal—in the Force Catcher at first but maybe even in bodies eventually. It would be useful to have something flying up high to keep a watch on the area, and maybe something on the ground to check for more immediate threats.

Mariah took another sip of the bitter coffee. She imagined Kira in a human host drinking from her own cup while she lounged on the bed next to Mariah. Kira probably didn’t take her coffee black, not unless she actually liked it that way, but Mariah had no way of knowing if that were so. Kira had come to her already trapped, and all of Mariah’s speculations as to what hosts Kira preferred and how she moved in them was pure conjecture at best. As it was, Mariah found her imaginary visuals for Kira almost entirely lacking. Instead, Mariah could imagine Kira’s words and turn the the droll commentary Kira made about Mariah’s coworkers in Hell towards the human monkeys making fools of themselves on the television screen.

Mariah laughed, grimly, bitterly. Talk about absurdities. Kira would not tolerate being in this hotel room, not with one of her choirmates stashed away in a dresser drawer. Mariah’s corporeal work was one of those conversational topics Kira deliberately floated around, and the silence left clear implications. Nearly three years in Hell, and the Hive still had too much sympathy for her Choirmates. Never mind that most of the specimens—much like the one in the room with Mariah right now—were nowhere near Kira’s league. Impolite, unfriendly, unworthy. Her informal observations classified the one with her as a likely-Outcast from a particularly militant Word. She estimated it had a 30% chance of Falling before it became someone else’s problem. In other words, typical.

Mariah turned her attention from useless fantasizing back to the television. The program had just changed over to some boring courtroom show. Like justice could even exist in the Symphony as it stood. Just look at her own situation. She had only committed one major mistake in her life, one resonance bounce at the wrong time and just see how harsh her punishment had been. Bitterness welled up in Mariah, even stronger than the coffee’s. She scoffed. The past wasn’t worth dwelling on. Just be strong, endure it, and overcome. Mariah flipped the channel over to something else. Anything else. Some quiz show, apparently. Humans did love to make shows that put their stupidity right out on display, didn’t they?

A tap sounded against the glass and called Mariah’s attention. A little red-breasted bird peered through the window. A beady black eye met her gaze.

Mariah didn’t need her mood ring to tell her it was furious.

The Kyriotate in the smoky quartz must have not been Outcast after all. Worse, it must have still had enough Forces free to take another guise and track her down to this location. And if her luck weren’t bad enough with just those two facts, it had come with reinforcements. When it chirped, Mariah could hear the multiple pairs of boots thundering across the pavement towards the bird’s location.

Fear had its own somatic reactions—the color draining from her face and the hard swallow that landed in the pit of her stomach. Specimen hunting was, by nature, a dangerous job. There was always a risk of catching a specimen bigger than the Force Catcher’s capacity, and this was Mariah’s first time at the wrong end of that risk. Mariah contemplated her escape options—no one was around to witness her cowardice. She could grab the empty catchers and the documentation that gave her a minimal defense against mortal authorities, abandon her motel room, and leave the specimen behind. But how would she flee? The only immediate exit was the door to the front, likely already swarmed with Heaven-angels. Assuming she could somehow duck past them well enough to make an initial run, could she count on her ability to evade multiple pursuers? No. Not without confirming there were no Ofanim among their number. Not in the beat-up Datsun she hadn’t had a chance to upgrade yet.

So, Mariah stayed where she was and steeled herself for the impending confrontation. She would be strong and endure what came next, and if she overcame the odds against her, Mariah promised herself she would learn from this mistake and do better going forward.

Or at least improve her firepower.

The lock gave way and two males—one tall and broad, the other short and slight—and a statuesque female burst in through the door, their mortal-tech weapons at the ready. Mariah wished she could get into good enough standing to get her hands on a decent bit of artifact weaponry. If her job required her to run up against Heaven like this, Mariah at least deserved a working pistol, laser-type preferred but even a projectile-spitter would be better than nothing in a situation like this.

The bird was the last to fly through the open door, and it landed on the drawer holding the filled Force Catcher.

The door then closed, and the short male not only locked it behind him, but leaned up against it. He nodded to the others.

Three Heaven-angels—or a combination of Heaven-angels and Soldiers, as if it mattered—looked her way. There was nothing but a wall behind her. No easy escape.

Was this how Mariah’s run would end? With one bit of bad luck?

If she was lucky, they’d just kill her vessel and dump it somewhere.

If she was unlucky, they’d drag her to a Tether, force her to take her true form, and leave her to burn up in the locus like an ant under a magnifying glass. And wasn’t that just one more example of the Symphony’s injustice, that an angel could burn in a Heavenly tether just because she lived amongst demons and worked in Hell?

The female and the tall, broad male laughed. Mariah scowled. She needed to hide her expressions better. The short male’s face remained neutral enough that Mariah became positive that he must be an Elohite. That distracted her from her melancholy. Everyone knew that Elohim were especially weak to the Habbalite emotions. Mariah could ball up this panic and…probably end up eating it herself, assuming her Discord even allowed her resonance to work. As it was, Mariah’s body froze, the most useless of the fear responses.

“We believe you have our comrade.” The statuesque female said, her face now perfectly composed. “And let me say it directly: If you want any chance of surviving this with your soul intact, you will release them now without protest.”

The bird—a robin—chirped dubiously. Mariah got the impression that it wouldn’t have objected to pecking out her eyes, if only it didn’t need her to take care of some business first.

It took Mariah a few tries to get the Kyriotate out of the catcher. Not because she was dumb, but because Tizzy had recently implemented what she had called a ‘password policy’ that utilized challenging sequences of random glyphs and numbers rather than the traditional pithy phrases that any month-old Vapulan would know by heart like the Third Law of Infernal Robotics or the chemical formula for Cyanide.

Mariah almost considered just breaking the blessed crystal to preserve her dignity. It’s not like the specimen deserved better treatment. The looks the four of them gave her suggested doing so would be a bad option all around. Besides, at the size she required, replacement catchers were expensive. Tizzy wouldn’t appreciate Mariah salvaging as many resources as she could from this ordeal, but someone else up the line might. Those decisions were what could prevent Mariah from becoming part of another one of her master’s experiments.

Provided the Heaven-angels didn’t rend her of her celestial forces first.

Finally, Mariah hit on the correct password. The forces released back into the world and faded, showing only a momentary trace of rust and iron mist from the Kyriotate themself. If they took another host in the meantime, Mariah had no way of knowing and no reason to care.

The four Heaven-angels exchanged a look.

“Now that that’s done. We can take our time with this demon” The tall, broad man jerked Mariah’s hands behind her back hard enough that a joint popped. A sharp shooting pain identified it as her left shoulder probably. The Heaven-angel at her back dragged her to the desk chair and pushed her down none too gently. “No disturbance, so not a Shedite then. Miranda, you want to play?”

Mariah had always known Heaven couldn’t be that different from Hell. She was familiar with this kind of play. It happened in the break room all the time. What was a little physical torture of her vessel compared to what happened to her every week in Hell? Compared to what her own Archangel had done to her a decade ago? Heaven-angels didn’t have the fortitude to match that. If this was how her end came, Mariah would face it with dignity, and she would correct their mistakes to the end.

“Not a demon!” Mariah practically spat the denial. Heaven-angels never understood these matters, not even Kira.

The statuesque female—Miranda, Mercurian—smiled a sharp angry grin. It resembled the ones on Mariah’s own Choirmates faces just before they turned their resonance towards the unworthy. A hand caught under her chin. Long nails not quite so sharp as those Mariah had made for her native form dug in. “Guess that confirms which Band this one is. Don’t mind if I—”

The words cut off suddenly.

The Mercurian’s grip didn’t loosen, but the nails stopped digging in so intensely. The Mercurian’s dark brown eyes searched Mariah’s as though she were a Lilim trying to discover an obscure Need. “I don’t understand her relationships.” She turned to the short male. “Bethan, what are you making of her emotional state?”

The short male—Bethan, Elohite—approached with caution. It was a pi—it was unfortunate that Mariah couldn’t reliably resonate, or else he would be the one trembling. As it was, Mariah allowed him to stay Elohite neutral—empty, even—and how did even he stand it? Emptiness was always the worst emotion to have to swallow and Elohim chained themselves to it. He crouched, getting down to Mariah’s eye level and searched her gaze.

After a moment, he glanced back up to the Mercurian. “It’s not usually what I see in Punishers. Or any demon really. She might see reason yet.” He turned his attention back to Mariah. “You don’t have to die. You could leave Hell and come with us. Our Archangel would accept you.” He said all that with no more emotion than it would take to recite the table of elements.

Mariah winced at her own weakness. The offer was more tempting than it should be.

Once upon a time, Mariah took pride in her Habbalite nature. She was one of the angels strong enough to serve in Hell amongst the demons and the damned. She had been blessed with the gift of the divine whims that told her clearly who to punish, what experiments to run, and how to be worthy. At least, they used to be so clear and so close. Even just a couple of years ago, her whims had whispered to Mariah to make a cage and to keep Kira for her own.

Now, those same whims were more than distant; they had all but abandoned Mariah. They left her tangled and twisted in feelings she didn’t even know how to pass on to someone else. Or perhaps, the whims hadn’t abandoned her at all. Perhaps they had simply multiplied when Mariah hadn’t been paying attention, the influence of hanging around Kira for too long or of holding Kira inside her, never mind that Force Catchers did not and could not work that way.

Yes, she still heard the whims. They had simply started to multiply and come into conflict.

One whim told Mariah to go with these Heaven-angels, never mind that Elohim were one step lower than Habbalah and enslaved by the frightful Emptiness, never mind that no Elohim could never hope to instruct the the weak as they needed to be instructed until they learned out to evolve. But as it was, Mariah’s own resonance could barely affect even humans anymore. She already functioned halfway like an Elohite, and her life in Hell had been miserable for years, Kira being the lone bright spot. Heaven couldn’t be worse, could it?

The other whim told Mariah to refuse. To leave with these Heaven-angels was to give up any chance to see Kira ever again. In fact, that was the only guaranteed outcome of leaving with them. Mariah could live and become an Elohite or burn up in the light of Heaven. Either way, Kira would be left behind. But was that even a downside? It would serve that manipulative creature right. Mariah would get to see Heaven while Kira remained stuck in Hell for the rest of her existence.

And that would be…unacceptable? But why? Because Mariah would no longer hold dominion over Kira? Because Kira would be trapped among those who were all unworthy of her? Because if Mariah wasn’t there, no one else would ever find Kira, not with the record of that Force Catcher deleted out from the database? And if someone did happen to find her? Kira would simply become fodder for a future experiment, as happened to all the other Kyriotates Mariah captured.

Mariah shouldn’t care about what might happen to her Kyriotate. Kira was hers to use for as long as she wanted and to dispose of at her convenience. She should have been more than willing to leave Kira behind, for the sake of her survival of nothing else.

So why was it so difficult to say yes?

The Mercurian and the Elohite stole quick glances at each other between bouts of staring at Mariah like she herself was a specimen on display. Mariah couldn’t help but laugh at the inherent ridiculousness of this whole situation. If she were tied and tangled in her dilemma, so were they.

It wasn’t that funny though, and the bitter laugh ended almost as soon as it began. “I don’t know if I can. I can’t—” She turns to face the Mercurian. “I won’t give her up.”

Behind her, the jerk of her arms tells her that the third Heaven-angel was not experiencing the same confusion as the two standing in front of her. “If the Punisher won’t choose redemption while she’s here, then let’s take her back to the Tether, and see if she’ll change her mind then.”

The Elohite shook his head, and looked beyond Mariah to the one who pinned her in place. Mariah would not embarrass herself via struggle, not when she could feel by grip how much stronger this one was. What was the point of those Corporeal forces her Archangel had grafted her when they could not even get her out of this situation? “It would not benefit the Symphony to rush the matter of changing her service. If we allow her to return to Hell—”

“That Punisher is imprisoning angels.” The tall broad male—Malakite?—said harshly.

“Yes,” said the Elohite, “but do you really think she chose this job of her own will? It is more likely this demon does this work at the command of someone else. Do you think that those who command her won’t send more to do this job once this one is disposed of? How long will it take us to stumble upon that one, and who will get hurt in the meantime? It is more advantageous to let this one go and consider a longer-term plan. We know this agent, and she is one who is protecting at least one angel from a worse situation than they might otherwise have. We can work with that.”

“That this Punisher took a liking to one of her victims is not a mark of honor,” the one behind her retorts. He’s definitely a Malakite. Never suffer a demon (or Hell-angel) to live, after all. Yet of these three in the room with human bodies, he’s the least dangerous. What could a Malakite see in her, anyway? That she captured Kyriotates and kept Kira for herself? The first should already obvious to even the densest of celestials, and the second should have meant nothing at all. It barely meant anything to Mariah’s colleagues, who appropriate work-equipment and specimens all the time.

The Mercurian stood up. “I would like the opportunity to speak to other parties before we do anything permanent. We can continue the conversation later once we have more information.” She took a quick glance around the room, likely assessing the the items strewn around for anything that could be traced back to Mariah.

There wasn’t much. Bits of her vessel—hair or nail clippings if Mariah were lucky, actual pieces of her if they were more interested in causing pain—would be most reliable for them, assuming they didn’t kill her vessel first. Otherwise, Mariah didn’t keep many belongings for long. The clothes were changed periodically and then replaced as soon as they wore out. The beat-up cars she bought and fixed never stayed hers for longer than one trip. The only items that truly mattered was her work equipment: her flimsy paper ID, the keychain loaded with the twists of wires cut from her catcher’s stock, and the catchers themselves. Those would be a pain to lose, and might be useful for tracking her down with the right song. At least none of those item were strictly Technological, not enough to cause her dissonance anyway. All she had to worry about on that front was her ring. Would they even notice that? Mariah dressed her vessel more like a typical ex-hippie than a scientist. The mood ring blended in perfectly, just like the perfectly ordinary crystal she wore around her neck.

Mariah hoped they would discount the jewelry as unimportant. She could accept vessel death, but not even a single note of Dissonance was acceptable. Mariah couldn’t take Discord again. Not after what happened the last time.

Wait. More information? What other connections had the Mercurian seen in Mariah’s? The weakness with Kira, yes. But more too?

The robin chirped behind Mariah, but the Heaven angels all stood in stony silence, looking at each other, and looking down at Mariah. The four Heaven-angels in this room were in disagreement. That much was clear. It was a small bit of joy in this miserable day to watch them fight. At least, it would have been if they hadn’t been fighting over how badly they wanted to fuck Mariah over.

The Elohite turned to the Mercurian, “There’s some cord back in the truck. Once we get her secured, we’ll have time to deliberate how to best resolve this situation.”

—

The deliberation—more like an argument—went on at the far end of the room for longer than Mariah cared to pay attention. Their voices were loud enough that Mariah could classify the conversation as definitely an argument but low enough that only isolated words actually reached her. It didn’t matter. The body positioning told the story clearly enough. The Elohite and the Mercurian stood to one side. The Malakite stood opposite them, the Kyriotate’s bird perched on its shoulder. The votes were at a deadlock, two for messy soul death, and two for an alternative.

The two on the former side were just Heaven-angels being Heaven-angels. Mariah lived in Hell, therefore she must die. That was simple enough to understand. The two on the latter side though, puzzled Mariah. The Mercurian and the Elohite had both looked into her and seen Kira’s influence on her, all of that apparently unsuccessful manipulation not quite as unsuccessful as Mariah had supposed. The conclusion hit her all at once. Their arguments on her behalf of Mariah’s life—and thus the possibility that anything of Mariah might remain ‘alive’ once the Heaven-angels were done with her—were, in part, because of Kira.

It was an uncomfortable, erroneous thought, and Mariah dismissed it immediately. She’d rather think about the junk car outside and how she might have fixed it up, given the opportunity.

Still, the argument continued on, long after all points should have been exhausted. It reminded Mariah of a group of bickering Baalites who had visited the facility once arguing over which of the damned souls to take, except now she was the specimen being fought over.

Heaven or Hell, were Warriors always this tiresome?

The sky outside went dark and then light again.

“It’s settled then?” The Elohite asked, voice finally loud enough for Mariah to hear.

The Mercurian nodded.

The Malakite’s response followed, slower. “I will accept that compromise. Reluctantly.”

The Kyriotate didn’t even chirp.

The Elohite approached Mariah and searched her eyes again. She fought the urge to close them or to look away, not that it would matter to him if she did. He wasn’t a Heaven-Lilim (if such things even existed) to see everything she shouldn’t have Needed in that moment but did. All he could see was her emotions, and what were those? Fear, at possibly being killed? Anger, at possibly being killed? What good did reading that information on her do him? He couldn’t change anything. He was weaker than her. Mariah was the next stage of the evolution, one of the angels charged with doing God’s work in Hell, while he kept himself locked away from his own divine whims. The only reason he had control of the situation were the greater numbers on his side and Mariah’s complete lack of weapons.

Yes, she would get more firepower next time. The next set of Heaven-angels to come after her would burn.

The Elohite looked away, and when he spoke again, the tone of his voice was as completely, infuriatingly neutral as it had been this whole time. “I meant that offer I made earlier, Punisher. I can see your feelings. Redemption wouldn’t be out of reach for you. Come with us, and you may serve our Archangel. It would not be nearly so painful as your current service.”

The Malakite stepped across from her, gun in hand, aimed at her right eye. “If you refuse our offer now, your vessel will be killed here.”

The offer still tempted her, never mind that Mariah knew better than to trust heaven-angels, especially Malakim. They could lead her to a Tether and simply torture and burn her under the light of Heaven. None of them were Seraphim. They could all be lying to her.

Or they might not. They spent a long time arguing over what to do with her.

Plus, she liked her vessel. It allowed her occasional freedom from Hell. The mortals in this country generally found it attractive, and it was a good disguise. Few of those in the know would ever suspect the cute hippie who sold crystal pendants at the flea market of being a Technologist. Would the next vessel suit her so well or be so easy to disguise? Would Tizzy even bother putting in the request for a replacement vessel? Or would this go down in Technology’s record as Mariah’s second big mistake?

Mariah mentally assessed what that Malakite could do in its Archangel’s Tether versus what could happen on her own Archangel’s examination table. The former option scared her less.

But in the end—vessels were replaceable. The chance to see Kira again wouldn’t be. It shouldn’t have mattered. There would be other Kyriotates in Heaven. Millions of them, in fact. Mariah could find a better one. And even if the process didn’t work, and she burned before becoming Elohite, that death would at least be the quicker one. Yes, Mariah should follow these Heaven-angels home, and leave Kira, flawed Kira, to linger in Hell with no one to manipulate.

The thought of not even getting the chance to say goodbye to Kira hurt more than the anticipation of bullets.

That attachment was a problem—a weakness even. She was going to lose a vessel for Kira, and the Kyriotate would probably only appreciate it when Mariah instructed her to be grateful. Her muddied divine whims told her that was a problem for later, part of that perpetual command loop of survival: be strong, endure, overcome.

The angels stared at her, all of them awaiting her decision. Of those in the human vessels, the gaze of the Malakite was the least uncomfortable of the three to meet. His lack of pity was an unintentional mercy on his part.

Mariah shook her head.

“Fine. The vessel it is.” The Elohite recited this like a fact. He turned to the Malakite. “Make it clean.”

“I thought you’d never ask.” The Malakite tightened his finger against the trigger.

And that was the last thing Mariah saw.

Chapter 24: Raye learns about recent events.

Chapter Text

There’s no mistaking the footsteps shuffling through the door. Or the sound of a body sliding into the chair in front of us. Or the nailtap signal against the side of our (might as well accept the possessive) box. This isn’t a scavenger or an unknown schemer who has entered the room. Our Habbalite has truly returned.

“I’m back.”

“You’re back.”

This is as our [Mariah’s and my] normal routine dictates, but we find the repetition odd, given recent developments. We half-expected that she’d immediately move our crystal back into her chest cavity. After all, last time she didn’t put us back here until the last possible moment.

“How were things down here?” Her voice is crisp and clinical, with no sign of previous chumminess in sight.

We sift our thoughts into approximately two piles: First, what we plan to tell Mariah and second, what we plan to keep to ourself for now. What goes into the first pile is the news we’ve volunteered to pass on as part of our ‘host/hive’ situation. This is mostly auditory descriptions of who had been there and what specific drawers they had run through. An off-hand comment about laser sounds. A bit of harmless gossip about office romances. An recount of an incident with the demonlings who broke her printer.

(Well, broke it more. We’re not sure this building actually contains a 100% fully-functioning printer. If one does exist, it's not kept in this room.)

The second pile is more fraught and mostly regards the schemes of her coworkers as they could apply to her. The way that the demons down here still poke and speculate about our cage. The ominous talks about future Game audits and blackmail material. About a quarter of us feel bad about our omissions. After all, that information is probably more relevant to Mariah’s well-being than, say, a recount of who took the experimental super-glue. The rest of us explain that first, none of the information we’ve heard regarding any ‘schemes’ has gone beyond vague right now; second, saying anything before we’ve heard any concrete plans would only serve to make our Habbie paranoid (more paranoid), and third, a just-in-time warning may be more beneficial to our own schemes than an early one would be.

Also buried in the second pile: Anything to do with Mariah’s having been seen at the Central Lab. We almost do. That detail clearly matters somehow. The storeroom gossip network spent too many hours talking about it, through the unabated supply raids.

But we know also know we’re missing an important nuance because it was significant to them that Mariah was specifically seen at the Central Lab and not some other random lab in Tartarus. No one sounded afraid or envious of the implications, either. We interpret that to mean that whatever Mariah did there (or had done to her there) won’t show off our Habbie in her most admirable light.

(What kind of light would that be? A lava lamp, maybe.)

(Or maybe the whole Central Lab thing was some obvious joke being made at Mariah’s expense, that just flew over all of our metaphorical heads. We’ve noticed a lot of those get made when people get chatty.)

Mariah taps her nails against the table, in sequence. “Is there anything else you need to say, Kira?”

If we could trust Mariah to not flip out, we could simply ask her about her last trip upstairs. She might give us enough context—either voluntarily or through the gaps of what she doesn’t tell us—to figure out what happened. If only we didn’t have that Habbie ego to contend with. Like most of her Band, Mariah absolutely refuses to expose anything in herself that might be interpreted as weakness. So, while asking would be useful, we can’t broach the subject until we have enough information to assess the risks and put it to a vote.

(There’s no room for us to speak freely with Mariah. Our continued presence here is part of a project, self-imposed as it may be. We have to keep that in mind. We [Mariah and I] are not friends. We don’t just ‘hang out’ together for social reasons. Even if we find Mariah more sympathetic than any of the other servitors here, we’re [I’m] only friendly with Mariah because doing so is necessary for our objective. That is all.)

“No, nothing else.”

Any phrasing that came readily to Helltongue came with a dissonance gathering twist. We have to say that in Angelic. It’s a very precise and socially awkward set of tones to indicate, ‘Yes, there is a topic’ and also ‘We’re not ready to discuss.’

Mariah goes quiet. Her silence leads us to wonder how much of the angelic tone nuance she understood. Is it more than we think? Or is she just expressing a dislike of the language? Somehow, with this interaction, knowing Mariah better only leaves us feeling more puzzled. We know something happened to Mariah while she was out. We know it influences her behavior towards us right now. We just don’t know why.

What aren’t you telling us, Mariah?

—

Time passes, and we’ve spent it listening for clues in the silence. If we can narrow down the type of silence, then maybe we can figure out its reason.

Type of silence actually proves rather easy once we settle in and focus some minds on the issue. A true lack of sound is rarer than people might imagine. For example, even when we’re the only sapient being in here, this room is never completely silent. Even when the radio is off, there’s still the hum of machinery, and a buzz from (we presume) the lights above. Noise constantly carries across the other sides of the walls, or it passes in through the vents. Occasionally, when someone downstairs has reason to be particularly passionate, the noise comes up through the floor.

(We rarely hear anything from above us. Maybe we’re on the top floor? Or the upper floor is just more effectively soundproofed?)

And that’s just when it’s empty (except for us). When other people are here, there are even more sounds to interpret, a couple dozen people we can identify—not by their name or face, but by their manner of talking and the sounds they make just by existing. Of all those, Mariah’s sounds are the ones we know best. We’ve heard Mariah in a number of states by now. So, we can tell when she works and loses herself in the tasks the Damp Mop Djinn gives her; we can tell when she leaves the room and comes back burdened under the emotion of her Bandmates; and we can tell right now that she is anxious.

She keeps turning the radio on and off. She changes the station back and forth between the one she likes and the disco station. She sits at the computer and does short bursts of data entry, none of it lasting longer than a single song. She paces. She sits down in front of us, and doesn’t say or do anything except tap her nails idly.

Mariah wants to talk.

We wait and listen and wonder which of us will break the silence first.

—

“It’s not fair that Elohim are the ones who get Heaven.”

Mariah suddenly shatters the silence with her apparent non-sequitur. It’s the first time she’s spoken to us since we delivered our report to her. The majority of our attention shifts towards her.

“They’re the weak ones, and they should be down here instead of us Habbalah.”

We could argue, but we instead give Mariah space to ramble. She’s on this rant for a reason, and eventually she’ll get to it. Maybe.

“They are too easy to resonate, and they’re not used to riding through strong emotions. Their actions are far too bound up in how other people will react to them. They should stay in Hell until they evolve into Habbalah and realize that it’s much more effective to decide how people will react. Then, they’ll get to Heaven and deserve it.”

We were not expecting this topic to open up so soon. Perhaps, that explains some of her dodginess. We cautiously venture out a few metaphorical butterflies. “Would you even want to see Heaven?”

“No!” Mariah’s denial comes too quickly. “It’s just unfair that Elohim get Heaven, and us Punishers are stuck in Hell with the demons. We shouldn’t have to sacrifice ourselves and become lesser just to get the same opportunity. We should at least get the ability to visit when we want to.” She takes a deep breath. Her fingers thump hard against the case in unison. This is one of those Habbie sore spots, and Mariah isn’t immune to it. (She’s not immune to any of them, not really, but this is a sorer spot than most.) “It’s because we’re not allowed in Heaven that no one from there understands we’re actually angels. Even you don’t Kira. You’re smart enough not to say so, but I know you don’t. And you should, since you’re also an Angel who serves in Hell.”

(Are we serving in Hell? Only in the sense of seducing a little Habbalah to the bright side in a completely platonic manner. There’s also a big gap between ‘serving in Hell’ and ‘serving Hell’. That ‘in’ carries a lot of weight for such a little word.)

That’s not useful to think about right now. What is useful is figuring out why Mariah chose to break the silence with this topic specifically. The Elohite rant isn’t exactly new. It comes up any time the possibility of Redemption gets mentioned in any context. What is new is that Mariah initiates the conversation. It changes the context.

“Have you ever talked with a Power?” This question of ours isn’t new either. It’s a standard question we ask at the end of one of these rants. The standard answer is “No.” But, well, no standard lasts forever.

(Some Archangels in Heaven might wish that were the case. But no. Even they have to accept the inevitability of change.)

Mariah goes silent. Then, she starts again, her voice quiet and close like she’s taking us into her confidence. “I ran into one last time I was on the Corporeal. I caught someone he knew, and he and his friends wanted it back. If I’d had enough essence on me, I’d have given him something to feel.”

Finally, some context! That could explain the oddity.

“What happened instead?”

“He offered to let me come back to a Tether with him and work for his Archangel. I told him ‘no’ of course. I don’t want to be an Elohite. I’m proud to be an angel who serves in Hell. I like what I have here.” She pauses and grazes her fingernails across our case. Her voice goes soft. “Who I have here.”

By ‘who’ she means us, and the sentiment is almost sweet. But when Mariah says ‘have’, she doesn’t merely refer to our company in the way that someone has friends over to visit for a few days. She means ‘have’ in the sense of personal ownership in the way that one has a dog chained-up in the yard. It would be surplus of imagination (delusion) to seriously consider otherwise.

We [Mariah and I] fall quiet. We [Mariah exclusive] stay quiet because this topic of conversation calls for a level of care we can’t give it while processing the new information coming in and figuring out what exactly she’s not telling us (we don’t think she’s lying, but she’s clearly skipping over a crucial detail or two). And Mariah, we realize, stays silent because she wants to hear our response.

It’s a specific response that she wants, too. Mariah doesn’t share this information out consideration for us. She’s not looking to clue us in, and she’s not seeking our perspective either. She’s fishing for a line we can’t give her: “You don’t have to lose me. We could be together in Heaven.”

Our minds pause all at once. Is that all it would take to get her to run?

We know Helltongue well by now. We could TWIST those words to sound sincere, and Mariah might even believe us this time. She knows how far we’ll go—have gone in the recent past—to avoid untruths. This could be the fib worth taking the risk for. If she believes us, then our freedom is all but guaranteed. However, if she doesn’t believe us it’ll be proof (to her) that we’re unworthy of her, and she can do what her delusions of holiness tell her to do and leave us here to whatever unhappy ending we deserve.

But even if she does believe, we would know deep down. More importantly, the Symphony would know. We’d still get one more note of dissonance, either way.

And, still, some of us are tempted by the chance.

We consider the situation. Maybe staying with Mariah would be plausible. Could we convince ourself of the plausibility enough to avoid the dissonance itself, if not the icky feeling that always happen when we just barely manage to skirt that line between truth and lies? We map out a scenario. Maybe we drag Mariah over to one of our [Creation’s] tethers and round up our Archangel long enough for him to explain the truth to her. Then, Mariah would become an Elohite, and, if so, we might stick around for a bit and show her the ropes.

(Assuming Creation would even be the right Word for her.)

It’s not impossible. Even if most of us feel sick at the thought of having to stick with our captor even after our hypothetical escape from Hell itself, we could probably stand it. We think. Maybe that would be the best possible ending. She becomes an Elohite of Creation, and we show her around. We could introduce her to our friend Cole, who could sympathize with any adjustment pains she’ll have.

(Assuming Cole didn’t hate her on sight for, well, this.)

We might not even have to stick around for long. Elohim (those we’ve known anyway) prioritize their social contacts differently from Habbalah. There are surely logical reasons why sticking with us post-redemption would be a bad idea, starting with Mariah’s need to find her own path in Heaven and ending with the conflicted feelings she’d sense coming off of us. It’s feasible that Elohite Mariah might just leave us on her own.

Maybe.

But, no matter how that situation works out, Mariah can’t have us in Heaven the way she currently does in Hell. She owns us here, and Heaven doesn’t work like that. One angel can’t belong to another on such an intimate, involuntary level. We (angels) belong to an Archangel, in the sense that our Heart resonates to their Word. We owe them our service, but they don’t ‘own’ us. We [I, specifically] were made as a reliever by our mother. She then raised us to the full nine-forces. In that sense we might belong to her as a member of her family group. Even then, however, we could never be owned by her the way Mariah does here. She couldn’t just lock us away in a box and hide us from the outside world.

(Not that she would have ever wanted to. Children grow up and move on. She understands that.)

No, what Mariah wants would still be a lie. And yet, some of us ask, “What’s wrong with a second note of Dissonance?”

(It’s an added brush stroke on a painting we don’t want to complete.)

This won’t last forever. This imprisonment. This chance to get out. Both credited to this terrible adolescent Punisher who waits for us to say something. Someone will confiscate the box. Mariah will get caught by the Game, or by Vapula himself, or by angels who won’t just let her run back to Hell. Every bit of hope we can grab onto down here is fragile and tenuous; every possibility we have for freedom balances on thin and fraying threads. Something will break.

If something has to break, then let her redeem without us. That would be best, but that would also leave us here, without any chance for escape. And we are, we think, a bit too selfish to wish for that just yet.

Maybe the dissonance would be worth it.

(We keep coming back to that thought.)

We’ve lingered at one for years now—the one we received for learning Helltongue, which we can regret in principle but not in practice. And now we have the one lie that, if we can speak it convincingly enough, won’t require a repeat. Except not quite half of us believe in it, and the parts that are willing to take dissonance are still in the minority.

In the end, none of us have anything useful and true to say. So, we don’t.

So, Mariah sits in silence to wait for that lines her pet won’t say, and we sit in silence to wait for Mariah to realize that we won’t say those lines, and we know the realization has hit when we hear the sound of Essence releasing into the Symphony.

A specific shade of Desolation runs through straight into our Forces, like watercolor on good paper. It’s a sharp stab of never-to-be-requited love and the deep betrayal of rejection from someone we can’t run away from. We ache to reach out to Mariah and tell her we’re sorry and of course we can be together. We’d do anything to stay with her.

(We know the feelings aren’t real. We know the words wouldn’t be any less a lie if we speak them now. That doesn’t make keeping our mouths shut any more bearable.)

We know we’ve hurt our beloved Mariah, and now she offloads that pain onto us.

Our emotion-clouded minds can’t help but think that’s only fair.

—

The Desolation has come and gone, and we’re ready to talk again. However, Mariah has slid back into her silent treatment. If our hearing were less finely-tuned, we would have seriously considered the possibility that Mariah had gone back up to the Corporeal without notifying us. What she would do up there (another quota, gone Elohim, gone Renegade) would be left to our speculation.

But we can still hear her specific sounds—her too hard pencil scratching against her notepad, the loud clacks as she types away at the keyboard, and her shuffle that always falls between Habbalite and Djinn movement. She’s not as restless as she was earlier. These are the more usual sounds we hear from her. The only sign that her thoughts still linger on us is is the hesitant way her fingers slide against our case, like she can’t decide whether she wants to talk to us or continue to pretend we don’t exist. The Damp Mop Djinn comes in twice to pass on a new assignment, and Mariah accepts them quietly.

(The Damp Mop Djinn mutters about how lucky Mariah is that they’re well-supplied right now. But otherwise, she doesn’t seem too bothered by—whatever has caused this change in her minion.)

Mariah comes and goes, but never long enough to bring in demons to eavesdrop upon. She’s probably doing her usual, going to the cafeteria or to view the angels in the secured area. We’re pretty sure she’s left to use the Paper Shredder at least once.

(We wonder if we can somehow convince it to destroy our prison…)

All the while, that itch of a missing nuance grows stronger.

What isn’t Mariah telling us?

—

We’re still puzzling over what we might be missing when the next message from our mother comes in via Celestial Tongues. We always find them little bright spots in the metaphorical darkness here (nothing is dark from a visual perspective, just blank) even when the messages themselves don’t say much of substance. We are neither dead nor fallen. We need to hang on. We can’t give up.

This next message comes in blazing with neon-bright significance.

Cole saw your Heart. It’s talking with the Warriors. Don’t give up.

If we could move our eyes, most would have widened at that.

Sometimes, all it takes is one line in an unexpected place to bring the whole picture together.

—

The final clue is “the Warriors,” which implies a certain sequence of events. Who learned about what first, and who passed the information to whom and some such.

Cole checked our heart and talked to our mother. But how did Cole know to check our Heart?

Sure Cole could have asked our Mother about our whereabouts, and Mother would tell it what she could (both in terms of absolute knowledge and permission from Judgment). That might be enough to make Cole seek it out, and report back to our mother. However, if the flow of information had come from that direction, there would be no reason for Cole to mention talking with Warriors to our Mother. War does not share its battle plans with most other words, even less so with Judgment, and that habit has definitely spread to Creationers in War’s service. The ones we’ve met anyway.

Which means the information must have come to Cole from the other direction. Not Judges, but Warriors, and it must have been someone who could identify the common link between Mariah and Cole well enough to seek out the Ofanite.

Which means that the Elohite Mariah met was most likely an Elohite of War. And if the connection was made between Mariah and Cole via their common acquaintance (us), there was at least one more angel involved in the conversation.

(Or two more, considering the escaped Kyriotate.)

We already figured out that Mariah hadn’t triumphed against the Elohite. She would have bragged about it, if she had, the way she does about anything that proves her right. But neither did she actually tell us the whole story. Habbalah don’t volunteer weakness. She refused his offer, and that was that. If anything else happened, how would the Kyriotate in the box even find out?

Except that gossip gets around.

Mariah was seen at the Central Lab. Central Lab, as in the facility at the center of Tartarus, the inner domain of Vapula, where the Hearts of his servitors are stored because demons don’t get to keep their own Hearts in the way actual angels do. Mariah wasn’t just seen at the Central Lab, the way that a demon on an assignment might be seen somewhere. Mariah was seen at her Heart, specifically and no one doing the gossip could predict when she would be getting back.

Which means, there’s more to the story, and we need to talk to her about it. Or maybe she needs to talk to us about it. Either way, Mariah can’t bring the topic up herself. Her Habbie pride won’t let her. She needs us to figure it out and do her this one favor.

Very well, Mariah. After all, in a manner of speaking, you are our host.

—

We’ve done brief experiments in echolocation here in Tartarus, which have succeeded somewhat in relieving some of our boredom, and not at all in helping us construct actual images from bouncing soundwaves. There’s too many variables to account for, and too few ways to distinguish one input from another. However, there is one tangential skill we’ve picked up on as a result of those experiments. Occasionally, it even has a use.

Tchk-tchk-tchk-tchk. Tchk-tchk-tchk-tchk. Tchk-tchk-tchk-tchk.

Mariah hasn’t actually tapped our case again, so strictly speaking, it’s not safe for us to speak. But we can finally make machine noises convincing enough that demonlings don’t try and figure out who could be in the room with them. It’s even fooled actual fledged Demons, who have dismissed it as random radio interference.

But Mariah, who is doing data entry across from us and still pointedly ignores our presence, knows this isn’t a machine noise.

We do it again. Tchk-tchk-tchk-tchk. Tchk-tchk-tchk-tcck. EEEeeee.

That last screech is keyed to match the frequency and tone of a typical Vapulan deadline alert in the same way that a cat’s meow is tuned to mimic the cry of a human baby. It is meant to stick in the mind, catch the attention, and be very, very annoying if left unacknowledged.

We’re preparing to do the call a third time when her chair legs slide across the floor towards us and away from the computer. Her voice is irritable, as though we’ve pestered her for hours. “No one’s here, Kira, you can just get to the point.”

Okay, then. Might as well do what she asks. What she’s been waiting for, even if she doesn’t realize she’s been waiting for it.

“You weren’t able to get away after turning down the Elohite’s invitation, were you?”

We hear the sound of the chair turning around and her nails scraping against the box. We slide forward in space, we realize that she’s clutching us to her—not as part of her, like our crystal in her chest—but like an embrace.

“No,” Mariah admits. “The Kyrio had at least one Force left over, they were able to lead a rescue party to the location—the Elohite, plus a Mercurian and a Malakite. They ordered me to release it, and I did, really, but they weren’t going to leave it at that.”

No, not with a Malakite, they wouldn’t.

“And that’s when the Elohite gave you an invitation to serve their Archangel?”

Nails tap from behind us. “The implication being that they would drag me to a Heavenly Tether regardless, but I could choose to serve their Archangel instead of simply burning up.”

“So why did they send you into Trauma instead?”

Mariah goes silent, and we can feel that this is what she needed to talk about.

“The Mercurian and the Elohite saw you in me. Whatever you’re doing to me. And I don’t know what exactly that is or how you’re doing it, but it’s changing me. From the moment my Forces came together, I’ve had the voice of God in my head telling me what to do, who to punish, how to punish them. And even after everything else I’d gone through, the Discord, the experiment, the assignment change, it still spoke to me loud and clear. It told me to take you and make you mine.”

All of us fixate on her, like a flock of starlings moving in unison. Not a single mind listens to anything but her. Does Mariah know how completely our focus falls to her now?

“But now, when it comes to you, that voice contradicts itself. If I was willing to go backwards and become an Elohite, I could have left with them, but I didn’t because that would have meant leaving you behind and never getting to be with you again. And I can’t have that…and I. Don’t. Know. Why!” Her palm hits the table, and then the Habbie takes a deep breath.

She sounds more composed when she speaks again. “After I freed their Domination, they tied me up in a motel room and voted on my fate. The Malakite and the Kyriotate wanted to burn me up in a Tether locus, but the Elohite and the Mercurian saw our connection deeply enough that they advocated for sending me to Trauma instead. They sent me back to you.”

There’s a tension in the room that almost reverberates through our crystal. It’s as close to physical sensation as anything we’ve felt since that one mistaken possession attempt that trapped us here in the first place.

“And you know, it’s funny. I know you’re changing me except I can’t tell if you’re making me stronger or weaker; if you actually want to help me or if you’re just manipulating me for your own benefit. Maybe it doesn’t even matter. But I realized, you’ve made yourself part of me now, and whatever happens to me will happen to you too. Just know that, Kira.”

And with that, she drags her chair back to her computer and starts typing like the whole conversation never happened. Mariah finally seems to have said what she needed to say to us, and we’re left alone to dwell on her words.

We can’t tell if she means that last bit as a promise or a threat.

We’re not sure she can either.

Chapter 25: Meanwhile, Cole moves things along.

Chapter Text

Cole never would have called itself a workaholic as such. Motion was motion, whether driven towards work or recreation, and both directions had their place and appeal. However, when current standing orders stated it couldn’t actually spend time with its favorite person unless it explicitly took vacation time, well, that meant that motion generally went towards the work direction until Cole could know for sure that Raye was present and available.

(The train had made it to Rome on time, and the pigeons had all been fully-healed and safely delivered back to their home roosts before Raye had to leave them, which made the mission a resounding success as far as Cole was concerned; the real tactical flaw had been depending on the Italian rail system for any kind of logistics. A giant slingshot would have been more efficient.)

Except when an Elohite Friend of the War had looked over the latest mission report and then turned its examining eye towards Cole, it had declared the Ofanite in need of a minimum one month leave before taking on any further on-call mission work. That was ridiculous, of course. It had only been a dozen years since its last vacation.

It had sent out messages—so many messages—to tethers Raye was known to frequent, to most of her corporeal friends and acquaintances, even to a couple of her siblings. No one had seen her recently, and that was concerning but not all that unusual. After all, she was more the type to stay in infrequent casual contact with many people than cling to just a few close friends.

Cole wanted to think that flighty, darling creature was doing fine and just caught up in the thrill of some new idea that had captured her fancy. Or maybe she had found an interesting way of helping someone out. If only she’d write back to tell it so, and perhaps invite it along, so it could have something to do beyond spinning its rim about in a bar in the canopy above its tent run by a Wordmate in service to Wind, awaiting some kind of reply.

The waiting was the worst, not quite dissonant, thankfully, but still frustrating. And boring. Raye would have been the first to say that boredom was an invitation to make something to do, but Cole would rather spin and orbit here and wait for the chance to maybe make something to do alongside her than settle for something to do with more distant acquaintances. Though the second idea was becoming more appealing by the spin. It could seek out other Creationers here in the Grove, and see who might have an odd job (or an Odd job) to hand out that could make for a fun story to tell Raye when she finally caught up and came back into contact.

It had been about to do just that when a Mercurian landed at the entrance of the bar and spread her fluffy white wings towards it in greeting. She looked vaguely familiar: dark and statuesque. Her outfit—standard issue cargo pants and tank top into styled into a fashion even Cole could recognize as deliberate—marked her someone more comfortable with groundwork than command. Not an officer then but someone Cole had worked alongside for a few missions before. Maybe? Maybe she had come with a mission in hand, and Cole’s vacation could get postponed to a better time.

“Cole, right? Ofanite of Creation in service to War?” Miranda—it remembered her name before the meeting could get too awkward—took a stool near an edge of its orbit and ordered her own beer. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“That would be me.” Cole adjusted its orbit to center around the other angel in a casual arc, close enough to stay in conversation range, far enough away that the path wouldn’t come across as aggressive or too overeager, one of the nuances in positioning it had needed to learn after becoming a spinny, spoked wheel of fire. “New assignment?”

The Mercurian uncapped the bottle and shook her head. “Not so much an assignment, let’s just call it some unofficial intelligence. We ran into a demon downstairs. You came up in her social network, and I wanted to pass that info on to you before someone—possibly me—advocates for some more decisive action.”

“Someone from Lust? I’ve moved on.” It had and would keep going until it could be as far away from that corner of Hell as possible or perhaps, until it came right around again and could mount an ambush from behind.

“Probably not Lust. She wasn’t someone you knew directly. More like someone who—” The Mercurian’s gaze moved towards the canopy above while she searched for the correct term. “—cares about someone you love. Or has an obsession with. Hard to tell the exact difference between the two relational states when a demon is involved. Have you checked in with your Kyriotate friend recently? The one who was involved in that incident with the electric kettle and the spaghetti noodles?”

It paused and reduced its arc to a narrow angle centered on the Warrior. New information brought new directions to go in and with it the reminder that new didn’t necessarily mean pleasant. “Raye? She showed up in a demon’s social network?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s her.” Miranda punctuated her statement with a proper swig from her bottle. “The demon used a different name for her, but the social connection between you and her line up. And we found these in the room she was hiding out in before we sent her to Trauma.”

She pulled out a set of crystals, of the kind that would look right at home on a chain as part of a necklace. Each was wrapped in a web of thin wire, to an interesting artistic effect. It could see integrating one of them into the sculpted hands of a clay figurine or onto the lid of a stained glass box. They didn’t look terribly menacing, but Cole knew, despite what it’s former Prince had taught, substance mattered more than looks.

“What are those?”

“Force Catchers,” Miranda said, “Kyriotate or Shedite or someone with the song of Possession tries to jump into someone or something wearing these. Boom. Forces get caught in the crystal and can’t get out. Each one is big enough to hold all of a nine-force angel, maybe even ten force one. Whoever is using these wants whole celestials. Our mission leader was only able to get away because they still had enough forces free to animate a couple of birds.” She waved her hand casually, as though dismissing the thought. “Normally, I’d just report this up, but I thought you might be able to provide some useful input due to your relationship with that Domination.”

Cole’s arcs turned to long narrow loops while it thought. Details started to line up—beads on string, birds on wires—until Cole had a conclusion to leap to, like going off the end of the branch holding this bar and diving into the groves below all momentum and forward motion and just barely a split second to consider where it needed to go first.

“Thanks for the info. See you around.” Because that was all a goodbye even a Mercurian could expect from an Ofanite newly pressed into action. It was already half-off the branch before it could say even that.

Her words echoed behind as it sped away. “I’ll be down in my tent!”

—

Cole’s first instinct was to go straight to Raye’s last known Corporeal location. Its favorite Kyriotate was probably in trouble, and, while some of Raye’s friends might tag along on a rescue mission given adequate details—such as an actual plan—Cole might be the only one willing to lead the operation. Raye’s mother might be equally motivated, but she wouldn’t, not tied down as she was to the Grand Hyena.

Warriors were never terribly original with their metaphors, but Cole liked that one and had adopted it happily.

The second, better instinct was to gather some information up here first. Setting up a rescue mission was all very well and good, but having the right starting point was even better, and where better to start than the heart of the matter?

The Heart, it could say.

Cole couldn’t remember the last time it had taken a solo trip to the Halls of Creation. It had been decades at least. Usually on its visits here, Raye would be at its side weaving butterflies between its spokes, a mouth or two telling stories while a third and fourth asked it for its own. Her absence registered here in a way it never could in the Groves. It could deal with the barren Cathedral of its Archangel, but the more personal emptiness threatened to consume it.

It shook the thought off and left it behind. Raye was missing. Cole was here to help rectify that.

The main entrance was as grand as ever, and where the path split Cole turned away from the one that led to its favorite workshops and kilns and towards the empty remnants of the once great Heartrooms. It knew the correct starting point, the precise spot where once upon a time—but not even a century ago—Raye had set her newly-forged heart beside Cole’s own solitary one and declared her friendship for the dubious Ofanite she’d only met that day. While their Hearts no longer rested side-by-side, the bonds that gesture had forged had remained indelible in the years since.

Said bonds might already be reduced to the traces in Cole’s memory.

Cole immediately spun away from that thought. It hadn’t come to this spot to dwell, but to make its way to the studio deep in the Halls of Creation where, after a few poorly-timed visits from the Inquisition, Raye had sensibly hidden her Heart. Little signs along the way could lead someone who knew her well in the right direction, while remaining opaque to strangers and Hyenas.

It knew Raye well; that wasn’t in doubt. It could follow her traces through these deserted buildings as easily as it could follow its own resonance to the nearest coffee shop. Cole let its sense memories lead the way. Images of crows and cats signaled the correct turns. The overwhelming scent of mint hung just at the door to the correct building. A faint trace of dance music got louder as it moved through the corridors (Raye enjoyed dancing, even if she never did it well. It made dancing with her a fun challenge.), and of course the butterflies, the ones that always fluttered between its spokes whenever they met on this plane of existence, provided a visual guide. The unmistakable sound of her laughter, echoing hollow for being an imitation of the real thing, led it straight to the correct door.

Finally the studio opened up to Cole. Like almost every room in these halls, the lights were dim, and the whole place felt conspicuously quiet without its occupant. The clutter was as it had always been—tables along the walls full of multitudes of unfinished projects, pictures of humans on the Corporeal she had helped, correspondence everywhere, old celestial sketchbooks, handcrafted decorations, including a number of glass and ceramic ones that Cole had made itself and given to her personally. All these it took in briefly while it sought out the one object that mattered right now.

Raye’s Heart rested on the corner of one unassuming worktable. Pictures of itself and her mother surrounded the glowing orange-gold sphere. Raye had set them about where she would see them immediately after ascension. Cole had appreciated the detail when she had first led it here, and it would take the time to appreciate the same detail again once it knew she was safe. All it appreciated now was that her Heart was neither shattered like an angel lost to Heaven’s, nor cracked and dulled like an Outcast’s. The fire in its spokes, gone taut with tension since its conversation at the bar, released and flared back into its rim.

Cole drew near to better view the Heart. Up close, flecks and cells of green and pink appeared, disturbed the smoothness of the Heart’s normal surface, and then dissipated. Cole blinked. Had her Heart always done that? Did it even matter? It shook the question off and focused on the image inside. It was the nature of a Celestial’s Heart to reveal its owners location, and while Raye’s Kyriotate nature might make pinpointing an exact location difficult, Cole could still use the image as a clue.

Despite its expectations, the Heart only focused on one image: a single box-shaped object that put Cole in the mind of a particularly menacing karaoke machine.

(And if—when—Raye could visit again, it would have to introduce her to the concept of karaoke. She would like the activity, not for its utility as a skill to pass on to a host but as something she could enjoy as herself, for herself.)

It took in the background image, looking for any clues that could give away the location. The Karaoke Machine of Doom rested on a Formica table, pushed back towards a painted cinderblock wall. Fluorescent lights lit up the scene from outside the frame. That was…less than helpful. These details could be found almost anywhere in the world that had the materials and cared more about function than form. There was a hazard sign on the wall behind the box. So maybe, it was a laboratory or, perhaps, a factory—some kind of place that might post warning signs with skulls and lightning bolts. Only, the signs were not in English (the most-commonly spoken language in the parts of the Corporeal that Raye frequented), nor did it resemble any other Corporeal language Cole recognized. But oh, it did recognize the script from a previous life.

Cole paced circles around Raye’s studio, to and fro, glancing back at the Heart every time it passed to see if the image would change. Was Raye alone? Or would the demon the Mercurian had mentioned eventually show up? If the demon’s only vessel had been lost to Trauma, Raye might be alone right now.

Or someone else might pass by and give Cole some more clues as to where she might be.

Hours passed, and then a flicker of movement caught its eyes. Cole dashed back to the Heart. While no faces could be seen, the image in the Heart was no longer devoid of non-Raye life. Fingers tipped in wire-laced metallic claws moved possessively over the box. Bony wrists and forearms laced through with more fine wires blocked out the view. Those hands were human-shaped, but no trained eye would mistake them for either a human body or a human vessel.

This wasn’t Earth at all, but a different plane of existence entirely.

The flames in its spokes went thin and taut again. “Oh darling, what did you get yourself into?”

—

Cole criss-crossed through Raye’s studio and let its thoughts move in time with its ring. Its initial idea of a corporeal rescue mission, the one that it had almost looked forward to pursuing—the action of the rescue, not the necessity of it—had to be scrapped. Not even that urge towards forward motion could push it into Hell in search of a captive, especially when it couldn’t even use the scene in Raye’s Heart to identify the unknown location’s Principality (Hades? Tartarus? Gehenna?). Cole could tell the atmosphere was all wrong for its native alleyways of Shal Mari, and that was it.

Perhaps if Raye had been at its side, hand in hand or hand on paw or hand on spoke sharing a conspiratorial look, it could consider such an adventure.

Or perhaps they would have traded a knowing glance, shook their heads at the same time, and worked out a less dangerous idea. There were an ever growing number of things it wanted to share with Raye. Hell would never be one of them.

So, a direct rescue mission was right out, but Cole still had the itch to do something, any little thing that might get Raye back home safely. It crossed the studio again and grabbed a blank sheet of paper from a drawing pad and Raye’s favorite felt-tip pen. It wrote a couple of lines down, folded and addressed it. There. It had written a message to someone who needed to know and who might have the resources to help. It could finally leave off pacing an arc around Raye’s Heart and exit the studio in search of an idle reliever.

The Halls of Creation didn’t hold many these days, and those it did generally did not idle along near-deserted hallways to be coincidentally found by distraught Ofanim. Cole finally caught up to one on the path heading back out to the Groves.

“Deliver this. Recipient’s eyes only.”

The reliever saluted, an absurdly serious gesture for a creature who dripped golden glitter everywhere. “Yes, sir! Right away, sir!”

While the little Helper delivered that message, Cole rolled its way back to the Groves in search of the Mercurian. Once Cole passed on the information it knew, she might be able to provide more details about the demon in question. Of course, too, there’d be the matter of tactics to discuss. If the Habbie—and those were Habbie hands it saw in Raye’s Heart—would bring her up to the Corporeal, then maybe there was a chance at a rescue. Conversely, if the demon were exterminated the next time she came up and Raye still down in Hell…

Cole pushed forward. It didn’t like leaving a rescue to mere chance, but a snowball’s chance was better than Hell.

Unexpected essence dropped into Cole—just one, enough to refill what had been spent at the bar earlier. A brief message had come in via Celestial Tongues: Let’s meet now, Halls of Creation, the rooms with the stained glass.

It reversed direction mid-motion and rolled back towards the place it had just left to see what Jubilee had to say.

—

Due to its location and Choir, Cole had thought it would be the one pacing the room while it waited on Jubilee. To it’s surprise, the enormous Seraph—and a much smaller Cherub—already awaited it at the entrance of the stained glass rooms.

Jubilee nodded her head and flapped each set of her feathered wings, and Cole returned her greeting with a few casual orbits around the Seraph. The Cherub, a snow leopard who was also a Hyena and absolutely incapable of protecting a Seraph almost half-again as big as it from any real trouble, stood by and observed.

Normally, Cole might have had a hard time determining which of the two had the more Judgmental expression, but today that honor went to the Guardian. Jubilee merely looked worried in how her three sets of eyes furrowed together and how her tail-tip lashed back and forth involuntarily, like an agitated cat on the corporeal.

(Or like an agitated Kyriotate in a cat on the Corporeal, and God, it missed Raye.)

Cole had thought they would just meet-up and exchange what information could be safely shared within earshot of a Hyena. Apparently not. Jubilee tilted her head in a ‘follow me’ motion and led Cole through the stained-glass corridors it had never paid much attention to before. Sure, the work was beautiful on an aesthetic level, if a touch hollow for not knowing a crafter’s touch, but the whole production always struck Cole as a bit irrelevant. The family units displayed in the glass were not made for celestials like Cole who had redeemed without any strong attachments to anyone—or even an understanding of what the Word of Creation had meant beyond just ‘sex rite’ and ‘hypocritical focus on feelings’.

But to the Seraph next to it, who had created perhaps a dozen relievers from her coils (never did get an exact number from Raye), moved reverently through each illuminated space until she came to her own portrait in the glass, surrounded by lovers and children and those childrens’ other force-parents and so forth, the very epitome of Creation’s focus on personal bonds. Cole spun a tight circle around Jubilee while it honed in on Raye’s image, a spray of the beautiful golden orange butterflies that made up most of her celestial cloud and let itself feel a small, sharp pleasure at the presence of blue spoked wheel in the background that marked its own connection to her.

The images rendered in the glass were never exact and always shifting, but another motif in the background of Raye’s portrait, barely visible, bothered it.

“I check here regularly, so I know Preerana is neither dead nor fallen.” Jubilee said as the start of the conversation. “But that does not mean she is alright. Have you heard from her recently? Do you know if she’s doing well?”

Cole glanced towards the Hyena-Cherub who paced the far end of this room and seemed to be pointedly ignoring the conversation before it spoke. “No to both questions.” It said, as nothing would reassure a Seraph if the direct Truth could not. “I haven’t heard from her recently, and after checking her Heart, I doubt she is doing well.”

Jubilee’s wing feathers ruffled up, and her Cherub padded closer in response. “How long ago was this? What happened to make you check her Heart?”

Cole flared out, and sorted out the minimum amount of information necessary to pass to Judgment while giving Jubilee what she needed to know. “Earlier today, and an acquaintance of mine told me she saw signs in a demon’s social network that indicated Raye could be in trouble. So, I went to check on her Heart to track her location down for a rescue mission.”

Jubilee scowled. Angelic would not allow for lying, but Cole certainly made use of some of the more evasive tones in that explanation, and those tones always got a rise out of Seraphim—when they weren’t the ones using them. She tilted her head and expressed that Cole should continue.

“The good news is that Raye is alive, unfallen, and not Outcast.”

Jubilee’s coils relaxed slightly. “Truth. So, now we can plan—”

“No.” Cole cut her off before it had to confront the necessary inaction head on. It tensed up a bit, spokes between center and rim pulling thin and taut. “That’s the bad news. When I looked in her Heart, I saw a sign written in Helltongue glyphs, and the one pair of hands I saw definitely belonged to someone’s celestial form. She’s not on the Corporeal. That demon must have dragged her down to Hell at some point.”

The Seraph’s gaze moved downward in a three-part ripple. “Truth,” she muttered. Her body moved in restless figures of eight. “That does make a rescue mission more complicated.”

Cole understood that anxious movement. It took its orbit a bit further out and faster. “War would not...War definitely won’t authorize a direct rescue attempt, even if we could figure out exactly where in Hell this demon was keeping her.”

“Judgment would not either.” What went unspoken by the Seraph was the knowledge that their boss, their shared boss probably would have let them plan a rescue. At least, he would have understood what was at stake. “I’ve been forbidden from pursuing the matter, or even consulting with those who might be able to help directly. All I can do is send messages to her until she comes home. Or until she’s confirmed lost to us. So that’s what I’ve been doing.”

Well, wasn’t that something? Cole took its orbit directly to Jubilee this time. “How long has she been missing?”

“I don’t know for sure.” Jubilee slithered past Raye’s image again. “Almost two years of messages and a year or more before that where I hadn’t heard from her.”

So about three years then, and that was…news. Cole measured the Ofanite urge to immediately press forward against the time that had already passed. Matters felt urgent, but they might not be. A number of terrible things happened to angels down in Hell, but most of the incidents Cole had heard about happened within a much shorter time frame—hours, days, weeks at most. If the demon had already held Raye for multiple years and not subjected her to those fates, then Cole would let itself be somewhat mollified by that fact. So long as Raye stayed alive, her escape would be possible, and it sounded like she had managed to survive for years now.

Cole rolled in silence, its celestial body keeping time with its own racing thoughts.

If the Mercurian’s reading of the relationship was correct, Raye had turned up in the demon’s social network and not as an enemy. The Kyriotate had her own abilities. If anyone could make a friend in Hell, would think it possible turn a demon towards the bright side, and would have the audacity to actually try, she would be that one.

And the problems with the vitreous scene before it clarified. The butterflies were still mostly the right colors, but just like the discolored flecks in Raye’s heart, hues of green and pink had started to come in along the edges of the butterfly wings. And that wasn’t the only change. The rendition of Cole’s wheel wasn’t alone anymore. In the background of the mural, clawed hands rendered in clouded-white glass clasped themselves around the smallest, most distant butterfly.

It tried to recall the explanation given to it. Clouded-white. Right, the color of the deceased and the damned, and Cole had seen those hands recently. It didn’t know how these stained glass murals decided which figures should be rendered, but it saw the implication.

“Raye’s doing something!” Cole said, sparks shedding from its rim as its rotations grew faster. “That’s why her image has changed. The hands in the background are the same ones I saw in Raye’s Heart. She’s trying to work on the demon from the inside. She has a plan!”

Jubilee snaked up and examined the picture up-close herself. “So the image has changed. That doesn’t mean Preerana has a plan. The Symphony hasn’t confirmed it one way or another.”

Cole kept its sigh entirely internal. That was the issue it found with Seraphim in general, and Judge or Judge-adjacent Seraphim in particular. Cole felt sure of the Truth in what it had said, and the Symphony could keep its final opinion to itself. “No, she has a plan.” Cole kept its rotating wheel of eyes on the picture while a more depressing thought occurred to it. “Or there’s something else going on down there that Raye believes is worth risking herself over.”

Jubilee blinked her three sets of eyes in a rapid flicker. “I’d rather have her back here. Hell is no place for an angel.”

Cole didn’t disagree, but it wouldn’t say so out loud. For how many decades had Raye been its partner in Heavenly antics? Pretty much ever since their first meeting on her fledge-day. How many messes had they made and then cleaned up together? So, so many. So what if Cole couldn’t put together a divine rescue party to storm whatever literally God-forsaken corner of Hell kept Raye captive? There were other ways to help Raye pull off her plans.

“Will you keep sending her messages? If so, tell her we met, and that I plan on talking with the Warriors. I can at least see if they’ll hold off on soul-killing that demon until Raye’s back home.”

“I will.” And a simple declaration of intent was as good a promise coming from a Seraph. Not even an ‘if they will let me’ modifier that came so often from those Wordmates now in service to the Hyenas or the Swordies. Dominic’s minions had not yet purged all the Creation from her. In fact, based on the agitated expression planted on the Hyena Cherub’s face when it padded back up to her flank, Jubilee was probably here against orders right now.

“Good. I’ll let you know if I hear anything else I can pass on.” Cole spun towards the exit with no more parting words than that. Its business here was done. It had new information to take to the Groves and an improbable request to make. Whatever antics Raye was up to in captivity, Cole would do what it could to move them along.

That’s what Ofanim did best after all.

Chapter 26: Raye tags along on (some) errands.

Chapter Text

We’ll be honest: The little chest cavity Mariah made to carry us in still creeps us out. Yes, our perch there gives us a slight but vital amount of mobility and scenery change. Yes, it represents Mariah’s desire to keep us close to her. (We can debate whether that counts as a net positive.) But we’re never going to be comfortable with the idea that a host—even a metaphorical one like Mariah—would choose to injure themselves on our behalf.

And now, we find out this happened.

Mariah essentially gave up a vessel for us. Or, we suppose, she gave it up for the chance to remain in contact with us, which is not quite the same thing. We didn’t ask her to. In fact, we never even considered the concept of Mariah would end up in Trauma for our sake or otherwise. Until now, we didn’t even think it was a possibility that merited consideration. Her surface ventures (let’s avoid naming them) alway seemed so all-or-nothing. Either Mariah succeeds and returns to us, or she fails and someone else eventually takes over her job and, presumably, this space.

How quickly situations can change.

(See also: Our last mistaken choice in possession target.)

We fiddle around with the feelings implied in Mariah’s outburst for a bit and still find ourself lacking a good response to them. Maybe an Elohite would know what the the correct (most useful, non-dissonant) lines would be. That’s not us. So, we shove those thoughts down to a deeper, more internal mind. We don’t need to avoid them outright, but it might help to germinate ideas without the pressure of conscious thought. This lets our surface thoughts focus on the practical concerns—namely Mariah’s vessel.

We can’t say we’ve come up with an escape plan yet. A few vital pieces are still missing, most notably a demon (Mariah) who is both sufficiently motivated to escape and willing take us along with her. However, we thought convincing Mariah to leave would be the difficult part. Her vessel we treated as an assumed resource. Why wouldn’t we? Mariah leaves Hell on a regular basis, and she’s not a Shedite, so of course she has a vessel. We just didn’t count on her inconveniently losing it.

(Yes, that was the best possible outcome in the situation she described. It’s still inconvenient.)

It’s when Mariah drags in yet another box of components to repair that we realize there’s no guarantee Mariah will even get another chance to leave Hell. Vessels cost, and Mariah’s a low-ranking, disposable demon. They might just dispose of her.

(And then what happens?)

(We find another approach.)

(We make another approach.)

“Mariah!” The Damp Mop Djinn’s bellow rings through the walls. “Get your ass in here!”

Our favorite Habbie immediately gets to her feet. Around us, her posture stiffens into a perfect straight line. We go silent. Mariah’s about to talk to the Damp Mop Djinn, and we get the feeling she’ll walk out of the conversation with either a new vessel or a whole new set of problems. Possibly both, but definitely the latter.

—

Mariah makes her way to the Damp Mop Djinn’s office in haste only to stand in silence for what feels like an absurd amount of time while her supervisor makes deliberate, almost painfully slow marks with a pen. Finally, the Djinn speaks:

“The good news is: There’s still a quota to fill.”

That doesn’t sound like good news to us (for many reasons), but we hear a sheet of paper being passed from the Damp Mop Djinn over to Mariah. “That’s your appointment with our prince to request your replacement vessel.”

“Archangel.” Mariah mutters under her breath.

The Damp Mop Djinn pauses for a second but otherwise ignores Mariah’s remark. “If you’re diligent, you may be able to convince him that losing your vessel, your ring, and my catchers was anything other than an abysmal decision.” She makes a punctuating clack with what might be a beak.

We feel the motion of Mariah’s gulp and her subsequent nod. “What’s the bad news, ma’am?”

The Djinn sounds very smug when she speaks again. “Oh, well I can’t say for sure. That’s up to you and the Mad Genius to decide, isn’t it? The bad news may just be that you need to make your own replacement catchers before you go back up. That’ll cost you a bit and cut into your deadline, but you’ve always been a diligent little Punisher. I’m sure you’ll manage. But well…” The Damp Mop Djinn trails off and the slow pen drags resume. We [Mariah, mostly] wait for a bit, but it appears as though the Damp Mop Djinn’s involvement in the conversation is now over, and Mariah will be left to figure out the implications on her own.

“Understood, ma’am.”

—

“What was the Damp Mop Djinn implying back there? About the bad news?”

Mariah sighs and unbuttons her shirt slightly. “It’s very simple. Our archangel is driven by his Word to experiment. If I can’t figure out how to explain my latest failure to him, and there’s a hypothesis he needs tested, then I’ll likely end up strapped to the table.”

“That doesn’t sound fun.”

Mariah’s lingering silence says more than a direct answer could. She never told us the specifics of what happened when she talked to her prince, but we remember how her voice cracked at that part in her story. We’re suddenly sure she’s been on the table before.

(To use her lingo.)

“Weakness leads to mistakes, and mistakes have a price, Kira. That’s just how things work.” Mariah sounds like she’s on the verge of tears or about to use her Essence reserves to pass those tears on to us. The catch on her body modification opens, and we feel ourself being lifted out. The motion feels almost gentle.

“You’re not taking us with you?” We’re not objecting. We (unanimously) do not want to meet a demon prince or even be in the presence of one sans introduction, but it feels off to not go along with her, as though us tagging along means we can do something—anything—to make the meeting with Vapula go better for her.

(We can’t.)

Mariah enters the elaborate sequence of motions it takes to safely open our case. “I can’t. The Genius Archangel will notice, and I don’t have a good explanation for you as you are right now. Especially not to him.” Our crystal snaps back into the space reserved for it. “And when—(we notice she doesn’t use ‘if’ here)—he notices, the results will be…suboptimal for both of us.”

Do we hear concern for our well-being in Mariah’s statement? Or are we attributing made-up significance to her words? We know what the plurality of us would have guessed even a little bit ago. Now, we’re not so sure.

(Might she be inching closer to going Elohite?)

Mariah’s chair scoots across the floor, and we hear a deep intake of breath. “Anyway, I need to leave now if I want to make it on time. Which I do. Because archangels don’t like to wait.”

(That’s true, but we’ve never been terrified of being late to a meeting with ours.)

“I hope things go well for you.”

We half-expect Mariah to scorn our well-wishes, but all we get as she strides out the door is a curt “Thanks.”

—

Mariah stays gone for an unspecified amount of time. Without the radio going, we can’t give an actual duration. We can estimate though. A mind walks itself through the bits of Mariah’s route we’ve experienced before: The trip through the office level to the elevator down to that sonic ocean of a lobby that leads out to the streets and (we presume) the stop for the public transit that will shepherd Mariah to another part of Tartarus, which we now picture as a nightmare city of towering industrial districts where any structure that might cater to people (souls or demons or whomever) fights to exist amongst the labs and factories like weeds growing up through sidewalk cracks.

(Even Hell has to make room for people, right?)

We can presume the time it takes Mariah to get from here to her master’s laboratory can be measured on the same scale as the trip she took us on when we first arrived in Hell. Hours or minutes as opposed to days or weeks. We can also presume that Mariah’s journey through her master’s laboratory takes approximately the same amount of time as the walk from this building’s cafeteria to her workshop.

Then, there’s the hypothetical return trip. The intuitive (but possibly incorrect) assumption is that our Habbalite will retrace her steps. The way out of Vapula’s lab will match the route she took in. The transit that brought her out to the lab will have a reflected route to bring her back to this part of Tartarus.

Given all this, we can estimate how long Mariah’s trip should take. A very nebulous, error-prone estimate with no definitive time-nouns to attach it to or any actual way to match it to reality, but an estimate nonetheless.

The mystery lies in what will happen to Mariah at that point in the middle—the actual meeting itself. Obviously, Mariah meets with her demon prince, who is like an archangel in a few ways. Power for one. What can Mariah do against her master directly? Precisely what we could do against our own were we so inclined (we aren’t): nothing. Superiors on either side can do with their servitors what they will; generally speaking, archangels just have fewer sadistic tendencies, overall. Function for another. Above or below, anyone who wants a vessel needs to be granted one by an archangel or demon prince directly. Vessels don’t just hang around in cold storage for a mere servitor to pick up at their leisure.

(At least, we assume they don’t. But then again, what do we know about vessel acquisition? Sure, there was that one time we accompanied a Wind Cherub who wanted to ask our archangel for a replacement, and we did help Cole sketch out some possible redesigns of its pre-redemption vessels, but do either of those even count?)

But demon princes obviously differ from archangels, and the relationship between superior and servitors is one of the key dissimilarities. Demon Princes own their servitors the way Mariah acts like she owns us. We [angels in general] give our Archangels our service the way we choose to help Mariah.

(Not that Mariah is anything close to an archangel.)

Mariah’s meeting could be quick and simple. She explains what happened and makes the vessel request. Her prince gives it to her. Maybe she gets a lecture or her prince makes some veiled threats, but nothing that happens takes long enough to fall outside our estimate. That would probably be the best scenario Mariah (and therefore us) could hope for.

Or her prince might be in an ‘experimental’ mood (Mariah’s term), and she ends up strapped to the table as a test subject. How long might that take? Depends on the experiment most likely. It might take no more time than an ordinary lecture might. Atrocities don’t need to be drawn out to be atrocious. Maybe it takes long enough that people notice her absence. While Mariah has a quota and a deadline to meet, we bet a demon prince in an experimental mood wouldn’t give one flying car about those.

Worst case scenario, Mariah could stay gone. Experiments can’t be permanent almost by definition, but certain end results can be. Or close enough to count anyway.

(Death. Or imprisonment similar to what we’ll suffer if Mariah doesn’t come back.)

All this to say when Mariah shuffle-staggers back into our presence some reasonable amount of time time later, most of us feel a bit of relief. The worst hasn’t happened.

The meeting still seems to have gone poorly. She practically crashes down into her chair without a single word of greeting, and while her sobs are nearly silent, the table vibrates slightly from her hunched over posture and erratic breathing. We’ve seen her a similar state before when she comes back up from one of those breaks where her bandmates have been particularly vicious.

Right. Her ‘archangel’ is another Habbalite. We bet Mariah is nuked out her (likely over-pierced) ears by a Superior-grade emotion bomb.

“How did the meeting go?” We ask once we feel the sobs abate enough that Mariah seems up for conversation.

“Fine,” Mariah says dully. She gets up from the table and starts opening cupboards and drawers. This isn’t from the mad inspiration we’ve heard from her before, or even the quiet diligence that accompanies her usual repair jobs. This is the slow, pained trudge of someone who doesn’t want to but has to anyway.

“Just fine? Nothing bad happened?”

“Nothing you should concern yourself with.” Mariah sets a couple of objects down that make sharp, clacking noises when they strike the table. “I have a vessel, a task, a quota, and a deadline. A then couple more tasks in addition to the quota.” Something else thuds down on the table.

“Like what?”

“Well, first, I need to make a few replacement catchers. Those heaven-angels looted the supply I’d built up before they shot me.” She sits back down at the table. “And I can’t meet a quota without anything to hold the specimens in, now can I?”

(We say nothing. We try not to think about it.)

“Second, I need to work off the dissonance. The bastards stole my ring, and since it’s too risky to try and get it back, Tether work it is. So that’s a week away from the hunt right there.” Snip. Clink. Snip. Clink. The wires Mariah cuts land on the table in front of her.

We think of our own note of dissonance that occasionally fuzzes up and itches at us. “You could always wait for another trip. One note of dissonance doesn’t do much harm. Especially for dem—I mean, especially if you’re not at risk of Falling.”

“I used to think that, Kira. And then it turned out that accepting one note of dissonance as no big deal fucked up my resonance and my whole life. So I’ll take a tether up and spend the week there before I start my hunt again.”

(Nope. Don’t say anything. Mariah doesn’t choose her job.)

“And, finally, I was given punishment work to make up for the loss my old ring.”

“Which is?”

“Field testing the replacement.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad. At least you have your artifact back.”

The laugh that escapes Mariah is tinged with bitterness. “You’d think that. But it’s model dependent. The new models that improve functionality? Those go to favored servitors. The one I got? It’s testing how much cheaper the rings can be manufactured for before the effectiveness dips below an acceptable level. And it itches. But that’s not the worst part of field testing.”

We’re curious now, and we’d rather talk about prototype rings than think too deeply about the replacement force catchers she makes. “What’s the worst part of field testing?”

“When it’s over, I have to write up a report detailing what needs to be improved and then present it in person once I get back from my trip. If that report isn’t thorough enough or if I fail to mention an important defect, then I’ll get punished for incompetence. If it’s too thorough, then I’ve pissed off a much more powerful and favored Wordmate. Possibly a Duke.”

We try to imagine how difficult that balance would be to strike. We’ve never need to think about organizational politics much for our own sake, but maybe we’ve had to navigate a bit of that for a previous host or two. “Hmm. That does seem pretty bad.”

Mariah sets something down again. It makes a similar clack to the original objects set on the table. “And the worst part is? That deadline? The one that everything needs to be done by? It’s my original quota deadline that’s already been mostly eaten up by Trauma, the wait for the new vessel request, and now the need to make my own replacements because Tizzy won’t let me use the pre-made ones.”

(Raye, stay polite. Avoid the subject.)

“That sounds like a whole lot to do in not enough time.”

Mariah sighs. “It is, but so what? Everything is a test. Those who can’t handle that fact will hit critical failure, and those who are strong enough will endure everything given to them and overcome.”

“Does that ever actually happen? The overcoming?”

Mariah goes quiet, the thoughtful kind accompanied by her nails clicking in a gentle sequence. “In the big-picture sense, maybe not so much. There’s always another test. But sometimes one of the granular problems proves solvable.”

—

Mariah’s tight schedule means she leaves the radio tuned to her favorite station instead of the disco one she usually changes it to. The upside is that we don’t have to listen to that damned (literally) morning show for weeks on end. The downside is that Hardstyle Techsynth is fast becoming our least favorite musical genre and none of the DJs on this station are allowed to have enough personality to distract from the noises. And of course, unlike the disco, none of the usual office scavengers finds this style of music offensive enough to turn off.

That lack of a gesture doesn’t mean anything. We’ve haven’t said or or done anything since she came out of Trauma to trigger anything more than faint irritation in Mariah. If we did, these kinds of passive-aggressive gestures—like leaving the radio tuned to the wrong station—aren’t really her preferred expressions of displeasure. Unpleasant emotional gunk is more her style.

Mariah’s not mad at us; she’s just in a hurry.

(Which is understandable. If our continued existence depended on completing a lot of tasks on a very specific and rigid deadline, we would be in a rush as well.)

And anyway, the radio station doesn’t matter. What matters is that our only tentative ally down here is under immense time pressure. How far might Mariah go to meet her quota when she’s pressed? Sure, she sounded sincere when she said we were part of her, but we’re still a captured Kyriotate, as much as any of those in the big catcher a couple rooms over, and slightly more than whatever poor choirmate might be in one of her crystals now. If this trip ends with Mariah one short, she may very well decide to let her pet become a specimen.

(Would she though? She gave up a vessel for us.)

(She gave up a vessel because the alternative involved the locus of a Heavenly Tether. Losing her vessel was her best option for survival. We were incidental.)

That’s the kind of thought that we play hot potato with in our minds. Mariah might be sincere in her feelings towards us, but she’s also a demon, and all she’s given us are words. If she had to make a choice, why wouldn’t Mariah choose her continued existence over our own? She could find a replacement anyway.

This is why we’re better off focusing on the external environment—listen for those who come in, use the audio clues to identify who they might be, and track what they might have stolen. (If Mariah wanted to give us a spoken description of what was kept where one of these days, we might be even more effective.) If we get too internal, most of us end up paranoid by the time Mariah returns.

And no wonder. The results of Mariah’s last trip prove how little control we have over our situation, no matter our resolve. Everything depends on luck and the whims of others. To get anything we want from this, Mariah has to: one, survive and maintain her vessel; two, realize Hell isn’t for her; three, take us with her when she does; and (optionally) four, do some damage on her way out. Even the chance we have now is miraculous in some measure. (Divine or infernal? We don’t know.) Even the first point, by far the easiest of the four to reach, isn’t guaranteed.

What if Mariah fails to meet quota or fails to avoid meeting yet another group of angels who would (rightfully) wish to stop her? Or what if, while she’s out, she decides to just try the whole redemption bit then and there? Either possibility improves the larger situation but leaves us [me, and possibly the other prisoners] stuck down here without a ride.

While yet another group comes in to raid Mariah’s supply cabinets of anything not welded down (Are half the staff secretly Valeforians in lab coats? Is that the explanation we’re missing?) these thoughts bounce between our minds like beams of light against angled mirrors. An idea takes shape. There’s one little request we can make to Mariah for entirely practical reasons, and maybe, we’ll get a chance to see what her actions say.

Assuming Mariah is able to meet her quota before she has to add us to it.

(Come on. Someone steal the battery to this radio already.)

—

We’re not so lucky, at least regarding the radio station.

If it were possible to get a headache while in trapped in a crystal, we would have had about six of them by the time Mariah hurriedly shuffles back into the room and changes from her soaking-wet outdoor clothing (that lands on the floor in wet splats) to one of her typical Hellside outfits.

We expect…we don’t know what we expect from her this time. A greeting, perhaps, or maybe for her to go through the intricate box opening steps one last time to take us out and include us among her other specimens. Instead, she completely ignores us and leaves the room without a single word uttered and a matter-of-fact stride, a sufficient number of captured choirmates likely in hand.

(Our relief at not being among them weighs down on us. It’s not quite selfishness. Our death by messy experimentation does no good in the long-term. But it still feels selfish, like we genuinely believe it’s better them than us.)

Mariah returns a bit later and immediately takes her spot at the computer. Her typing noises have a different cadence from the usual data entry. Hesitant keystrokes and more of them between punctuating line breaks. Ah, right, the report about the ring she had to field test.

She mutters under her breath occasionally as she jams down on a button several times in sequence. “Can’t call it a ‘piece of shit’…hmmm…how about ‘flimsy’—no!—‘flexible beyond optimal parameters’? Better.”

While Mariah carefully considers how to explain the apparently many, many defects of her new artifact to someone who can flay her alive, we consider how we want to approach Mariah with our own request. But we stay silent as she types, out of consideration.

Finally the report is in a state to be printed. We can hear the infernal beast fire up and then Mariah’s sudden sigh.

“Kira, who stole the ribbon from the printer?”

“You should build us an emergency exit,” we blurt out our request with one voice while another responds to Mariah’s own question with “It was either that Wind Chime Habbie who said something about the Help Desk, or one of the demonling cliques causing mischief again. How messy is the room?”

“What?”

“If the room has ink splattered all over, I would guess the demonlings took it. If it’s still fairly neat, then it’s probably the Wind Chime Habbie.”

Mariah taps her nails down on the counter. “Not that. The other thing.” She stalks over and opens our case. “You told me you wouldn’t try to escape so what good does an emergency exit do?” There’s a warning in her voice, but a light one. A growl that’s not quite ready to turn into a bite, but it could if we answer incorrectly.

We feel her lift our crystal out of our case. There’s a slight creak as the cage in Mariah’s chest opens for us. Thankfully, there’s an honest (non-dissonant) answer that falls within striking distance of ‘correct’. “If something happens to you while you’re out, then it wouldn’t doom me into spending the rest of eternity down here.”

We have a few more motivations than that. But we don’t share those with Mariah, and she doesn’t ask.

“Oh, is that all? Don’t worry. I can keep myself alive. Do you want know how long most of Tizzy’s former assistants lasted?”

“How long?”

“Two or three years on average. It’s why she doesn’t bother to train anyone until after they’ve completed a successful trip.” Mariah re-buttons her shirt. Her voice echoes around us. “I’ve lasted more than fifteen years now. So, what happened last time? That was just some bad luck. Now, I’ve passed the resulting test, proved it was just a fluke, and now everything will go on as usual.”

Yes, the usual. Where Mariah is about to step out of this room and get bullied by a Bandmate in hopes that she doesn’t have to use her limited essence to buy the bit of printer equipment she needs to can print out a report about some sub-standard piece of equipment that she’ll have to hand-deliver to a much higher-ranking demon than her and who probably doesn’t want to receive any feedback Mariah might have to give.

“Is that what you want?”

“What better options do I have?”

Of course she asks that question as the door to the storeroom slams shut behind us, and we’re left unable to speak for safety reasons. Hopefully our hum accurately conveys our opinion.

—

We suppose the important thing (to Mariah) is that she does get the ribbon for her printer replaced, which means that by the time we’re allowed to speak again, our Habbie can resume her fight with the printer.

A fight she’s currently losing in part because of the abject humiliation forced upon her by her bandmates not even an hour before. By the way, we mean the resonated emotion not the way she had to beg on her hands and knees for what appeared to us to be a moderately cheap office supply. Though, on reflection, the latter act probably helped to reinforce the former.

“Is that normal?” We ask, when Mariah steps away from the printer. “What your Bandmates did down there, I mean.”

(There were at least two Punishers that we could distinguish. The aforementioned Wind Chime Habbie, and then a second who didn’t make any distinctive noises when she moved, but talked at length about how weak Mariah was for losing track of her printer ribbon.)

“They don’t usually…” Mariah trails off. We should be glad she’s even capable of speaking to us in her current state. “No, it’s not that unusual. It’s what I deserve for being such a pathetic example of what an angel in Hell should be.”

Ahh. We already know Mariah’s bandmates use her as a chew toy, and clearly she’d rather not talk about it, but as part of our duty to look after our pseudo-host, we have other issues to press. “So what’s unusual about it?”

She takes her time answering.

“They don’t usually bother fucking with my stuff to bait me.” Mariah presses a few keys on the computer. A screeching whirr starts up, and then something plasticky clunks back and forth. The printer must be functioning now (for some value of ‘function’ that finally spits out her report).

“So why now?”

Mariah shuffle-paces across the room. “Ah—so since I’ve started carrying you around, I’ve been doing the extra work to avoid them. I—I don’t like when you see—well, hear—me like this.”

“So, you think they’ve changed their tactics to bring you to them?”

“Likely.”

“Why not just come up here while you’re at work?”

“Tizzy starts snapping when anyone without a title tries to co-opt her assistant. And that includes unauthorized breaks.”

We match this up with our image of the Damp Mop Djinn. It seems to fit. “Ahh.”

The printer no longer sings the song of its people, and that’s music to our ears. Mariah grabs the paper, makes a slamming chuh-chunk on the counter (stapler?), and then some robust paper bends (a manila envelope?). Mariah hesitates. “Of course they’d do this.”

“Do what?”

“Test me with this emotion right before I have to hand deliver a report to a distincted member of the field-testing division. I have to figure out how to do that when I already feel like I fell on my face and ripped open my pants in front of the entire Robot Wars audience.”

“Why not wait until it wears off?”

“If I do that, I’ll miss the deadline. And this isn’t fluffy little Heaven-land where missed deadlines get you cotton candy and a sympathetic pat on the head.”

(In our experience, missed deadlines get you very stern looks and, depending on the deadline-giver, either extra clerical work or disappointed friends.)

Mariah rushes out of the room, and we’re back to giving Mariah encouraging hums as she attempts to cross the office area without incident. Typically, we’d try to do more to help our hosts, but the we best can give now is our moral support.

White-collar sounds pass by us at decent speed, until Mariah crashes into someone and staggers backward.

“Watch where you’re going, sweetheart.” The voice—feminine, nasal—sounds more amused than annoyed.

Mariah responds in a whisper-soft tone. “Sorry about that. I’m in a bit of a rush. Very important report to deliver to a very important demon.” She presses forward only to have her arm caught by whoever she bumped into.

There’s a momentary pause, and then the bumpee blurts out. “Oh, you don’t need to bother yourself with that. Mail hasn’t gone out yet, and I can set this up to get sent out by end of business today. Express delivery and certified even.”

Mariah just bumped into a Lilim, didn’t she?

Please say no, Mariah. Please say no. You don’t need a Geas.

(We don’t dare hum.)

Mariah jerks away from the Lilim’s grasp. “Thanks for the offer, but no. My instructions were to deliver it in person.”

“Suit yourself.” The nasal Lilim calls out behind us. Her next lines become indistinguishable as Mariah takes us out of listening range, but the tone gets ruder.

Mariah steps into the elevator vestibule and mutters. “God and Lucifer, Free Lilim are so annoying sometimes.”

We hum inquisitively.

“Oh, they’re useful for doing all the boring receptionist work that no one has time for. But they’re always, always, trying to get hooks on people. It’s the absolute worst. Mostly it’s the mid-level people who are in the most danger, but even those of us on the ground get our share of the attempted Geases.”

At our second hum, Mariah answers our implied question. “It’s happened twice that I know of. Once I had to hand over an expensive reliquary I’d just bought. That stung. The second time I had to raid Tizzy’s supply room for the sedatives. Like I said, annoying. But there’s not much down here I Need that they could get a truly troublesome Geas on.”

We hum dubiously. We’re no Lilim (and, even if we were, we have no way to get eye-contact from inside here) to see what Mariah Needs, but we know her well enough to know that she has plenty of Needs that would get her killed if she got caught with them.

“And that shouldn’t be an issue, so long as you stay quiet.”

—

Once we leave the facility proper, everything goes fine. The walk to the nearest subway station? Fine. (We might have a different opinion if we had access to, say, our olfactory sense.) The train ride out to a central hub? Perfectly fine. The slight detour we have to take to get to the next train because of construction work on a tollway only two-percent of Tartarans own a vehicle of the appropriate type to use? Fine, despite what the crumbling concrete barriers and the crackles of the (alleged) tire fires might indicate. The second train to our destination where everyone is packed in together like the proverbial sardines in a hydraulic press? Fine again. (We don’t actually inhabit the body getting pushed and pulled every which way in this jam-packed coach.) According to Mariah everything is just fine, fine, fine all the way down. Business as usual, even.

(Is it any wonder we don’t find Hell appealing?)

Mariah’s meeting with the Field Testing Department goes fine as well. The Duke doesn’t actually show up to take Mariah’s report, nor even a Baron. Instead, it’s a weirdly intense Knight of Combustion who hones in on every slight contradiction in Mariah’s very delicately worded critiques and who then quizzes Mariah on concepts like ‘psychorhythms’ and ‘thermochromaticity’ that are clearly out of her area of expertise.

(And ours. Those sound more like new forms of personal expression than scientific terms.)

But she gets out of there with nothing worse than a bruised ego and some drained Essence (we would think Impudites as a band would be immune to social awkwardness, but definitely no). As a bonus, she’s allowed to exchange the prototype ring she was given to field test to one the knight derisively labels as the ‘stable release model’.

Despite this, Mariah remains in a bad mood. “All that work, and I just end up in the same place I was before. Or slightly behind,” she mutters while she navigates the crowd. “Same artifact. Less attractive vessel. A more irritated supervisor.”

Sympathy hum. Our Habbie has had a day.

“It’s just one more an an ongoing series set of tests. Be strong. Endure. Overcome.” Mariah lets out a gentle sigh as her body gets jostled onto the first train back. “At least, I still have you.”

The trip back to the facility is no less fine than the trip out.

—

A repair job waits for Mariah the moment she returns to the supply room. After that, the Damp Mop Djinn has another one lined up followed by a third job that’s exciting for being a single large and particularly unwieldy object rather than a box full of a dozen or more identical small devices.

(At this point, we’re pretty sure a good half of Mariah’s repair jobs involve devices decayed through their proximity to the Paper Shredder. We suppose good storage practices don’t mean much when you’re a Vapulan with a minion around to repair objects on command. Still, it seems risky when we consider the volatility of the average piece of VapuTech.)

(It’s a miracle we don’t hear more random explosions.)

Once the large and unwieldy item finally gets set back down on the floor (presumably fixed), Mariah shifts immediately into her next project.

There’s usually an easy flow to how Mariah works her repair on devices. She might grumble a bit while she tries to undo the results of entropy exposure, but the process itself is almost pleasant to listen to. We’re reminded that even a place like this has cracks for the Word we serve to shine through. This time, however, we can hear and feel the hesitation in Mariah’s movement. Her body rocks forward and back. Her nails tap erratically on the table. At last, she grabs at some paper.

“Difficult job?”

Mariah starts to sketch with her too hard pencil. Maybe it’s not yet another repair job from the Damp Mop Djinn after all. None of those seem to require anything in the way of design work. “Oh, no. It’s not a job at all. I’ve just thought about that request you made.”

Uh oh. (Oh good?)

“You and I are going to be together for a good, long time, Kira. Don’t worry about that. I have no plans to go anywhere. I’ve proved that I’m strong enough to survive the tests I’m given down here, and I don’t have any interest in becoming an Elohite. But you’re right. If I do have to leave you for some reason, you should be able to get out. No one else here deserves to have you.”

Oh, how sweet. We don’t say that out loud, but if we were in Angelic, the sarcasm tone intensifiers would be on max.

Unlike the body modification she made before, Mariah completes the planning stage quickly and gets immediately to the modification stage. She slides the case towards us [Mariah and me inside her], and we hear the sounds of the device—and it strikes us that our case is indubitably a device—getting partially dismantled.

The modification work sounds tedious. Click. Pop. Click. Turn. This repeats a number of times before Mariah reassembles our case. Then we hear a quick twisting sound in place of the elaborate sequence Mariah usually performs to open the box. “Hmm…needs more pressure.” Mariah stands up to rummage through a drawer. Surprisingly, she seems to find what she needs.

“Let’s see if that does the trick,” Mariah says, after another round of tedious modification and reassembly. She does the quick-twist maneuver again, and this time we hear the sickening sharp sound of cracking crystal. Glasslike shards scatter over the workbench with a tinkling noise. Mariah leaps up from her chair and lets out an abbreviated cheer. “That should do it!”

We’re about to ask Mariah exactly what should do when we catch the sound of the door code being entered. We go silent immediately and Mariah sits down and hunches over on cue. The door opens, and the Damp Mop Djinn thumps into the room. “That should do what?” she asks our exact question, with her voice sounding out from just above and behind us, like she’s peering over Mariah’s shoulder on to the scene below.

Mariah puts on a submissive tone suitable for talking to her supervisor. “Just finishing up a personal project.”

The Damp Mop Djinn’s voice comes in nearer. “Huh. Your recording device?”

“Yes. Exactly. I found a way of improving sound quality and thought I’d put it into practice as long as I’m between tasks.”

“How diligent. No worries, there’s more work waiting for you.” The Damp Mop Djinn sets a box on the floor next to the table and thumps away from us. As she opens the door, she finishes, “And Mariah…those quartz crystals are reserved for Force Catchers. Company supplies are not to be used for personal projects.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The door closes in the middle of Mariah’s reply.

Apparently, being a Djinn does not disqualify one from having a dramatic sense of timing.

—

“So, what exactly did you do?” We ask once we’re both sure the Damp Mop Djinn will stay gone for a while.

Mariah sounds entirely too pleased with herself when she answers, even as she’s stuck vacuuming all those quartz shards up. “Nothing too fancy. Just a little modification to one of the security mechanisms. Since you know better than to try to escape by now, I just swapped out the blades for a pressure mechanism. If someone manages to brute-force open the box, the Force Catcher will break, and you’ll have a chance of leaving Hell before the alarm system goes off.”

Ouch.

Short of breaking out, there are two ways to be freed from a Force Catcher. The first is to have someone who knows the password speak it out loud. In theory, there’s a sequence of sounds that once spoken by Mariah (or someone else, but probably her) would immediately loosen the crystal’s hold on us. Mariah, being a Habbalite, has naturally chosen the second way: Break the crystal, free the being inside.

(How would she have accomplished the first?)

(She could have at least tried.)

“You do know how force catchers work, right?” Mariah asks us right as we’re trying to figure out whether she designed the new mechanism to damage us by necessity or by choice. “As far as what breaking one does?”

“It’ll free us, but it’ll also do celestial damage to us.”

“Exactly. So don’t think about attracting unnecessary attention in hopes of an easy escape. It’s meant for emergency use only.”

“Emergency use only,” we echo.

We had multiple reasons to ask Mariah for an emergency exit. The first, obviously and most practically, would be that emergency escape route. But we also did it as a test of our own to try and sort out Mariah’s feelings towards us. Is she stepping away from Hell-type relationships? Does she see us as a friend worth a small consideration, even if it’s at the risk of letting us leave of our own will? Or does she still see us as a pet Kyriotate, a being that she owns and has mastered? Mariah can confess all sorts of feelings towards us (and likely mean them), but it’s her actions that we need to believe.

And what did she do? Mariah built us that emergency exit we asked for, but she also made sure it would damage us if we ever used it.

Half-credit, we suppose.

—

“I’ve been wondering, Kira, why don’t you?”

The noise of the cafeteria surrounds us, and Mariah sits in her usual spot. This is the last ‘break’ she’ll get before heading up for her next quota, and it’s the last chance we’ll have to freely talk for a while. The sea of noise nearly drowns out Mariah’s voice even at this proximity, which means we can barely be heard by her, much less by anyone else in this place.

“Why don’t I what?” We don’t trust this line of conversation. What have the Visiting Habbalah have inflicted on their poor Discordant Bandmate this time? Either she’s trying to trick us or her head is fucked in an exciting and novel way.

“Push me towards a…you know…a job change.” Her body tilts with furtive language we can’t see. The chance of being eavesdropped upon in this gigantic noise box remains omnipresent, if miniscule.

The radically direct answer, suitable for Seraphim, angels of Revelation, and novice Helltongue speakers is that we absolutely are pushing her towards that job change. We would like nothing more than for Mariah to take us with her the next time she leaves and then run for the nearest Heavenly Tether. We just consider a minor amount of subtlety to be more effective than the radically direct approach.

The answer we give instead keeps to our [mine and Mariah’s] established metaphor, that of a Kyriotate and her host. In that way we can talk around topics that neither of us trusts the other enough to discuss directly.

“When we were younger, before we fledged, we asked a Kyriotate about why they didn’t make certain choices on behalf of their hosts. That seemed to make the most sense to us at the time. They had complete control of a host’s body while they were in it. The mind is always somewhere else. So, why not just make humans do what’s best for them, when what’s best is obvious?” (Other corporeal creatures as well, but those tend to be less complicated.) “Anyway, that Kyriotate told us that it’s not our Choir’s job to make choices for our hosts. Sometimes, it might be necessary, but, generally, making a habit of deciding matters on behalf of our hosts was a fast-track down. Even if none of those choices harmed the host at the time. Even if the host subconsciously wanted to pick the choice. And once I actually started working with living humans directly, I quickly came to understand that myself.”

Mariah stirs her glop morosely.

“So, yeah, I’ve been hosted by plenty of humans who were discontent with their job situation. They might have hated their job, or maybe they just wished they could do something they were actually passionate about. They were a bit like you in that way.”

“Don’t be rude. I’m nothing like a human.”

“No, not very much like one.” Demons here generally get offended when someone attributes human-like qualities to them. (So do some angels, but that’s more of an individual quirk than a general trait.) We continue on. “But if I just quit a despised job on their behalf or signed them up for a new job without their knowledge, then it’s not unlikely they’d be worse off. They could have hated the new job, or they might not have the qualifications. Or maybe the new job doesn’t actually pay enough to cover their family’s expenses. Maybe after staying with one person for years on end, I could learn enough about them to get perfect accuracy. But even then...”

(What’s not said: We don’t want to stay with anyone long enough to know what decisions to make for them.)

“So instead, it makes more sense just to try and make the better choices easier. Maybe I just show them a change is possible. Maybe I show them a starting point to give them an easier path to follow if they do decide to take it. It’s about opening them up to more and better options, and my hosts can do with those what they will.”

Mariah continues silently shove her food around on her tray. Presumably, she’s thinking about what we said, but she’s just as likely lost in her own thoughts.

“So, you think changing jobs would be an improvement for me.”

This we can answer directly in complete confidence. “I’ve accompanied you on enough work errands recently to think you’ll be happier making the job change. For the improved work environment if nothing else. Other than access to me and the pride you take in your nature, I don’t understand what else keeps you holding on to Hell.”

“Kira—” Her tone is a warning to back off.

“But that’s my opinion. You’re the one who would have to take the risk, and so the choice has to be yours. One-hundred percent. But I’ll stick around, so I can help make sure that job-change option stays open to you for as long as possible.”

“And what about afterwards? If I did decide, I mean. Not that I would.”

We’ve had time to think of an honest and not entirely hopeless (for either of us) response. “We’d have to separate at some point, but it’s not impossible that we could meet again.”

Mariah pushes her tray away. Clearly she’s done trying to partake. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I’ll never choose that job change isn’t it, so get that ridiculous idea out of your mind.” She pauses, then adds, “All of them.”

With that, the conversation ends. We doubt Mariah will be receptive if we bring up the topic again anytime soon, but she remains silent even after we get back. Maybe our analogy will echo around in her head for her subconscious to process, even if she’s not yet ready to face the possibilities that seem so obvious to us.

(If so, we hope she doesn’t take the job change idea off in a completely different direction and decide to become Mariah, Habbalite of the Media. Or Mariah, Habbalite of Death. We’re not sure which would be worse. But we acknowledge the possibility. Our Habbie does tend to over-commit to ideas.)

Anyway, it’s not like we have time to continue the conversation anyway. Mariah leaves for the corporeal soon afterwards. The radio is tuned back to the usual disco station and no horrible emotion mucks up our soul. However Mariah feels about our last conversation, she doesn’t feel the need to punish (or Punish) us for it.

And, maybe, coming from her, that’s as good as an admission.

Chapter 27: Raye follows the news.

Chapter Text

“That was supposed to be a simple task. Resonate Tizzy’s Habbie into a state where she would be desperate for help.”

“Habbalite. And we did that. You cannot say the broken one wasn’t absolutely humiliated by the time we were done with her.”

“She was practically cowering from the janitor imps. That was some well-applied resonance.”

“Not that you’d be in any position to tell.”

“We did exactly what was required by the Geas. It’s satisfied now.”

“You’ve satisfied one Geas. One. Low level. Geas. What you did not do was get me the result I need.”

“Are you our manager? Or higher? I don’t think so.”

“Not our assembly line.”

“Not our robot monkeys.”

“That one’s as weak as your average human. If you can’t convince her to accept a favor from you without help, then perhaps that’s a flaw on your part.”

“I hear the Media does seminars. ‘How to Fake Friends and Influence People.’ You could attend one.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Just you might want keep in mind how many more incidents you still owe me for and how might you prefer those debts not to be called in.”

“You make a decent point.”

“For a demon.”

—

Hey you! Yes, you.

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If so, then do we have an event for you!

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You won’t want to miss out on this one! We’ve got disco acts from all across Hell coming together for one explosive fest of disco dancing and musical mayhem! It’ll be the party of the decade! And NDKO will be giving away tickets by the dozen! Just sign up for our newsletter and you will be automatically entered to win!

Void where prohibited. Winners are responsible for securing their own transit permits. NDKO claims no responsibility for any loss of hearing, sanity, or life as a result of winners’ attendance at this festival.

—

“The lack of progress on your end has been…concerning to say the least.”

“Preparations are still being made. There’s not much I can do here while the Punisher is out doing…whatever she does.”

“You tell yourself that, but procrastination makes for a poor play strategy. You had the perfect opportunity land in your lap when that Habbalite hit Trauma, yet you failed to take advantage of it. Now, you’re stuck waiting.”

“There will be more opportunities.”

“Perhaps there will be. You may even be competent enough to take advantage of them. Perhaps the question is whether you can successfully do so without attracting suspicion.”

“Why should it? We temps Geas employees here all the time. What are you planning on doing with that hook that I should worry about attracting suspicion?”

“Nothing that would be traced back to you, of course. It’s simply that you can’t afford to have any more suspicion cast on you, can you? Not when your previous side-dealings come to light. Think about what the director of this facility might do if he found out. Or worse, the Prince himself.”

“That’s not your concern.”

“You’re right, it’s not. My concern is that you get us a usable hook on that little Habbalite before the next audit begins. Discreetly, if at all possible. Do you understand?”

“Of course. You’ll have your hook.”

—

This just in folks! Robby the Wonder Imp is making an appearance and signing autographs at El Diablo Records at the Palisade Mall right now! He’ll only be here from three to six p.m. today, so run! Don’t walk! You don’t want to miss out on this chance of a lifetime!

—

“Did you hear, the Robodrome secured Beepo Beepboop as the featured battler in the Robot Wars Fall Tournament!”

“Really? The invincible and legendary Beepo Beepboop?! The robot who won over three-hundred consecutive battles last year?!”

“The one and only.”

“Wow. So we really want Blenderbot to do its best.”

“Yes, which is why we need more blades. Check the other drawer would you? All I see in this one are crystals.”

—

Tech-savvy Demons in search of batteries may want to be aware of the Ener-Tech V3000 Batteries. Numerous consumers have reported complaints of ‘bee attacks’ after turning on devices powered by these aforementioned batteries, with large swarms being reported by particularly large clusters of batteries. Current estimates set the number of bee-attery assaults to be between 300 and 6000. No casualties have been confirmed yet, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

When asked whether a recall would be issued, the representative from the Vapulan Product Safety Commission simply said: ‘Buyer beware’.

Ener-Tech did not respond to NDKO News’s request for comment.

—

“As I was saying, my problem with Swampbert right now is that the essence requirements are going way above the max capacity of my current power sources. And that’s before figuring in the output requirements for the laser cannon. Now, if I sacrifice the waterproofing around the central control system, that’ll save a little bit of energy…but that still leaves me significantly short.”

“The problem is that you spend all your corporeal time in Florida, and that place is clearly rubbing off on you. No one needs an alligator robot with a laser cannon mounted on its back.”

“Of course you wouldn’t understand. You’re not even part of Technology. But what even someone like you should be able to grok is that that right there is a huge reliquary and, clearly, it needs to be put to better use.”

“Huh? Are you sure? It looks like an ordinary tape player to me.”

“Ordinary tape players don’t have essence, and a lot of it, sitting right there. I can see it. And everyone here knows how much essence that Punisher needs just to resonate anyone, so it makes sense that she’d keep a reliquary on hand. What else could it be?”

“That’s not any of my business.”

“Well, I suppose given her budget, it could just be two or three Spirit Batteries hooked up to power an ordinary little relic. In which case I can take the relic, dismantle it for parts, and salvage the reliquary slash spirit batteries slash whatever is in there powering the device and use it for Swampbert. And I would—owww!—except for that.”

“Maybe. But I have a better idea. Whatever that box is, that Habbalite is obsessed with it. We can exploit that Need, and you’ll get more than just a few cheap components out of it.”

“Or I can just take it apart now—ow!—after I disable the security mechanism.”

“Or you can leave it for now and give me a chance see what Geases I can extract from her first. Once that’s done, I can make her give you the box, all the nasty traps dismantled. No need to electrocute yourself.”

“One problem with that. I leave that situation owing you. Whereas if I just take it right now, it’ll be weeks before she’s even in a position to find out. And what is she going to do? Resonate me? Unlikely. Where’s she going to get essence from?”

Bzzzt. Bzzzt.

“Ow! Lucifer almighty! Fuck. That’s some current.”

“You wouldn’t necessarily owe me. Sure, I could just Geas her to hand her device over to you with all defenses removed, and you’d have your extra energy source. In which case, yes, you would owe me a little bitty favor. But that’s not the only way to play it.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I were somehow able to use this situation to get a larger Geas on her, I would owe you an equally large favor. Say, continual project support and extra supply procurement.”

“Hmm. I admit that’s tempting what with all the development and testing left to do before the tournament. But…it still might be better just to take it now and figure out how to open it later. Insulating gloves might help.”

“If gloves worked, someone else would have taken it by now. I suggest you leave it be, and let me take care of this. You’ll either get your power source—without the extra electrocution risk—or I’ll owe you a major favor.”

“Okay, okay. Fine. You can try it your way.”

“That’s all I ask.”

—

Heartwarming! This damned soul has just made friends with Stompy the Salvage Bot. We’re on the scene now as Stompy leans in to hug its new—oh—oh—hold on a minute, folks! It looks like Stompy has just picked up its friend! Its now waving him around in the air like underwear up a flagpole. Diego! Get a camera on this! Our television audience won’t want to miss this!

Wow! Tartarus may just have a brand new unaided flight distance record folks! Shame about the wasted Essence capacity! But that’s the price of unconventional friendships!

Oh what’s this! Stompy’s just turned its attention to another couple of damned souls. We may have a full-fledged rampage on our hands, folks! How exciting!

I hope you’ve enjoyed that little sneak peak at next hour’s top news story! Remember, if it bleeds, it leads!

—

“What if it’s not a recording device?”

“What?”

“What if it’s secretly something else? She seems too attached to it for it to be just some regular piece of equipment.”

“Everyone gets attached to their inventions. That’s normal.”

“Yes, but it’s just a box. It doesn’t even fire lasers.”

“Not everything needs to fire lasers.”

“Everything needs to fire lasers! Unless there’s nukes.”

“Not everything needs to be a secret weapon.”

“Well, what else could it be, her imaginary friend?”

“It could be, like, an AI or something. Like, one of those droid-thingies.”

“Yes, but most ‘droid-thingies’ have some kind of cute shape. This is just a box, and not even a proper cube shape.”

“It’s a friend box!”

“A friend box? What the fuck would that do?”

“It wouldn’t have to do anything. It’s a box. That’s also a friend. Friend Box.”

“Friend Box? Like it doesn’t even maim anyone? What a stupid concept!”

“Hey! It could catch on.”

“Not with that name.”

“Fine. I’ll just let someone from Media deal with that bit after I get the prototype up and perfected. It’s a great concept. You’ll see.”

—

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—

“You sure there’s no surveillance here?”

“Decently sure. Why do you ask?”

“Just an odd hunch. Do you remember when the broken one came down to get the replacement ribbon for the printer?”

“Oh yes. That was great! She had to beg for that replacement.”

“Well yes. But she seemed to be looking specifically for the ribbon you stole. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

“No. Even if that Lilim hadn’t invoked that Geas, I would had to have done something like that eventually. She’s been avoiding her fellow angels too much lately.”

“She’s weak.”

“Exactly. We can’t keep indulging her. And where would she have hidden the equipment?”

“Maybe that box over there. It does have a tape recorder.”

“Sure. But it’s definitely not running now. Plus, if she really were surveilling this room, she’d have enough blackmail material on half the company to get herself a better job.”

“Maybe she does, but she’s too dumb to realize. Or smart enough to realize that no one would listen to her if she tried to use it.”

“Good point. But no one’s around now. Do you really want to waste our time here talking?”

“Not really.”

—

We interrupt our regular disco grooves for this breaking news flash:

Lavinia Q—no relation to our very own gossip reporter—Lilim legend of stage and screen died just hours ago when her limousine crashed into a concrete pillar on the Highway to Perdition. While this event was just tragic—tragic I say!—her fans can at least take heart that she died a legend.

Better dead than a has-been. Isn’t that right, folks?

The leading role of Beatrize in The Infernal Comedy will be taken over by her understudy Dramatique until further notice. Let’s hope she fares better.

—

“Look, I’m stuck with this lab assistant until he gets his Band. But if I don’t pawn him off on someone else after that happens he’s going to ruin my career. He's already cost me that position in R&D and now I've been forced back into Marketing. Marketing! Do you know how embarrassing it is to report up to a Media servitor in Tartarus? He needs to be gone so I can get back to the real research.”

“Are you looking for me to arrange an accident?”

“Sadly, no. My acceptable employee loss ratio went above the threshold last quarter. What I want is for the little bugger to get reassigned once he fledges, and quickly.”

“I can talk with Tizzy, and see what I can do.”

“That Djinn?”

“I have a hunch she’ll be looking for a new assistant soon enough, and since corporeal work appears to be part of the job, you can even present it as a promotion of sorts.”

“Are you sure she’ll go for that? I wouldn’t trust him in an empty room unsupervised, much less on a different plane of existence.”

“All Tizzy requires in her assistants is a warm body and a casual disregard for self-preservation. She expects them to screw-up and fatally.”

“Is that what happened to the last one?”

“Think more future-tense, sweetheart.”

“Excuse me, I’m a nuclear psychiatrist, not a grammologist.”

“Grammarian.”

“Whatever.”

—

Tartarus Sector 15-H is in shambles today after a two-dozen Calabim rushed the gates demanding an opportunity to take up service under Technology. This herd of Destroyers took out more than fifty armed guards and dozens of security drones before a sniper squad was able to sedate them. Officials estimate that the property damage done in the meantime will take decades to fully repair.

You’re a Destroyer, Dingbat. What do you think? Should Calabim get a chance to join Technology or no?

…ksssh…ksshh…ksssh…ksshh….

Bear with us, folks. Dingbat is experiencing some technical difficulties with his microphone.

—

“Thetan says it saw another Calabite get escorted out of the gift shop the other day.”

“Hmmph.”

“Another Calabite? You mean there’s more than one? Isn’t the Paper Shredder enough?”

“The Paper Shredder is one too many, if you ask me.”

“Agreed.”

“Hey, where are all these Calabim coming from, anyway? I was told this facility wasn’t licensed to deal with them. I wouldn’t have joined otherwise.”

“Who cares?”

“Well, of course you wouldn’t. But you think it’s curious, right, Kazbi?”

“It’s simply fascinating, just not enough to ask those kinds questions where someone might hear it.”

“By ‘someone’ you mean Tizzy.”

“Tizzy, the Facility Director, anyone who reports directly back to the Mad Genius…we’re here to find the supplies that will help get us to the final round of Robot Wars. Not to unravel whatever illegal Calabite problem this facility has. I bet Thetan just made the story about the Calabite up just to distract us.”

“Hmmph.”

“Exactly. Couldn’t have said it better myself. Now where did she hide that screwdriver this time...”

—

Over at Tartarus-Perdition border, an imp, a gremlin and a rocket scientist were caught in an attempted escape run. PR representatives from Technology say the captured fugitives will be contributing great advances in the field of rocket surgery. Footage from the experiments will be broadcast on TBC 6 at a later date. Stay-tuned for further details.

—

“You have a progress report to give me. I don’t imagine you’d waste my time otherwise.”

“Everything has been set up to get that hook you Need. Contingency plans are in place. No one should suspect anything.”

“What of the supervisor? Has she been convinced to let go of her protection.”

“I was able to work out an arrangement with someone else. The supervisor will be convinced to keep her assistant here during the next audit.”

“Good. Good. And, Brenda, you shouldn’t be be so worried. Just do what your Geas requires, and everything will be just fine.”

“Yes, of course it will. I’m not worried at all.”

—

We’re live here at the main stage of Disco Conflagration here at Perdition Nights right at the heart of the city! The opening act of the opening night is due to get on stage in just under an hour and let me tell you, this place is already packed full! We have demons here from all across Hell and the party is already started!

All the big names are here. ZeeBeez, Sister Sledgehammer, The Ultimates featuring Briana Boss, Hipps Inc, The Scammps, Le Freak, Chakra Con, The Hades People and more! We’ll have more surprise guests than a Firebug can throw a stick of dynamite at!

Whew. That was a close one there. Not only do we have a Disco explosion here. We have plenty of regular explosions as well!

If you missed out on the pre-orders, remember tickets are still available at the gate for the bargain price 10 Essence each! Sure it may be more than most of you can carry, but this is going to be the Disco event of the millennium! Plus, everyone gets a free drink ticket! Are you a real Disco fan or are you just a Disco dilettante?! Or maybe even a complete square?! You can’t afford to miss out! Take out a loan folks! It’ll be worth it!

Back to you at the studio, Chantal.

Thank you, Susie. We’ll be covering this event live all throughout the festival, and you won’t want to miss a moment! And now it’s time for a song from our sponsors…

Chapter 28: Raye escorts Mariah to the robot wars.

Chapter Text

When Mariah returns to deliver her half of the traditional greeting, she’s in good spirits, and why wouldn’t she be? Unlike her last outing, there’s no tight deadline or a sense of impending doom looming. Her hunt was successful; another quota was filled, and she now gets to spend some time in the company of her pet Kyriotate and only friend (us).

That is, she’s in good spirits until we fail to complete our half of the ritual, and instead say: “We need to talk.”

Her voice immediately loses its bubble. “What’s going on?”

We’ve taken plenty of time to mentally sketch out the most likely overarching scheme of one pinched-voiced Free Lilim and taken surprisingly little time to debate whether to tell Mariah of them. Sure, we have that one nagging self who wouldn’t mind our captor falling to the Game—sees it as just revenge and our most likely route to freedom, even—but the overwhelming majority of us prefer to warn her for a myriad of reasons.

“Remember that one Free Lilim you bumped into on the way to deliver your report to the Field Testing department? The one who offered to mail it out, so you wouldn’t have to go in person while you were under Bandmate Resonance?”

“Choirmate resonance, but, yes, I remember.”

“Well, that run-in wasn’t an accident. That Lilim is out to get a hook on you.”

“Lilim are always after hooks. So what?”

We sigh with three or four mouths. There’s ambiguity ahead in this conversation, and we lack the skills in either Helltongue or Angelic to do better than muddle through those knowledge gaps. We know a few basic facts. The rest is reasonable speculation based on past overheard conversations from the Game, a resulting guess at what will be asked of Mariah should a hook get set, and—more importantly—what her chances of surviving it might be.

We start with a fact. “The ‘so-what’ is that she’s under pressure to get that hook on you by the time the next the Game audit arrives.”

“Oh? Huh. Well. Tizzy usually keeps the Game off my back, and if she won’t this time, then I’ll cope. They’ve gotten a bit antsy about the Discord before, but there’s only so much a minor hook can get out of me.”

Wait. Mariah is acting way too casual about this. Shouldn’t she be more paranoid? It’s the Game. They’re like Judgment, but worse.

(Judgment at least has to follow the rules it sets for the rest of Heaven, and more besides. Even actual Angels know that the Game is just one giant loophole.)

“Except this same Lilim also worked out an arrangement with some middle manager looking to get rid of a demonling intern once it fledges. There’s a replacement for you all lined up. Do you really want to count on your supervisor’s protection to get you out of this?”

Mariah taps her nails on the table, one after another in presumable contemplation. Are we getting through to her? Or is she just looking to deflect? “Who says I’ll need it? If I’m stuck with a minor hook, I’ll just deal with it. What’s the point of worring about it? It’s just one more test to face.”

Deflection it is. Spare us the Habbalite obsession with tests and strength.

“Maybe you should worry. Do you have any idea how they’re going to use that Geas? Because I have a guess, if you want to hear it.”

“Sure, give me your hypothesis.”

“They’re going to use you to get into the secured area. You know, the place where my Choirmates are, along with other Heavenly Angels? The place that’s officially off-limits to the Game? And when that happens, who do you think is going to end up caught between your Prince—”

“Archangel.”

“Between your Superior and the Game. And Mariah, that Geas won’t be a one and done situation.” We are not drawing this picture out clearly enough, but maybe a bit of second-hand experience might help. “I have (not had, Cole deserves the present tense up until our forces dissolve and beyond) a friend up in Heaven who was put through a similar situation. That one little task they give turns into blackmail material which they’ll use to push you into a more serious betrayal. And so on until there’s no escape. Either your Pri—(Now is not the time for divinity arguments!)—Superior catches you in flagrant betrayal, or the blackmail itself leads you into a situation you can’t survive.”

Mariah taps her nails for a few seconds—in a thoughtful sequence rather than an adamant unison. “That’s a lot to conclude from a few overheard conversations. You’re not even sure, are you? Your tones would be different if you were. More precise. Less speculative.”

Language continues to not be our native medium. Maybe this conversation would have gone better if we had the skills to lay out a convincing formal argument. Maybe we should have taken oratory classes—or even just read a few books on rhetoric in our spare time.

(Our Destiny sister is going to be so smug if we ever admit that to her.)

We decide to skip the attempt to rephrase. If Mariah won’t take the core of our argument seriously, then saying it fancier won’t help us get through to her. “It’s a logical enough conclusion. More importantly, if you don’t want to get caught up in a cycle of blackmail, then you need to make your escape before that Lilim gets that initial hook.”

“Oh. Is that what this is about?” The chair scoots out, and Mariah’s footsteps shuffle out a pace across the room. Her mind is working overtime, and not in the direction we hoped it would. “You want me to run away and take you with me.” Her voice approaches us again, accusatory. “What happened to waiting until I was ready?”

“I am willing to wait until you’re ready. The machinations of your fellow demons, on the other hand, don’t give a damn about your schedule.”

(Damn? Should we be using ‘damn’ here? Or is ‘bless’ the more accurate expression?)

Mariah sighs, like we’re the one being less than sensible here. “First of all, I’m an angel. Second, there’s always machinations down here in Hell, exactly zero of which have gotten me killed yet. Stop being so paranoid.”

(We are being sensible—above and beyond the usual Creationer standards, even.)

“Would you at least pick up a pair of sunglasses, or tinted goggles, or just something that covers your eyes? A Lilim is out to get a Geas on you, and let’s just both agree it wouldn’t be a good thing to just let her.”

Mariah scoffs. “I’ll be fine. I’m not an idiot.” Her footsteps shuffle away from us. “Anyway, I’m heading out to take care of some errands. See if you can avoid fabricating another conspiracy while I’m out.” The door opens and slams shut behind Mariah.

We’re frustrated all to Hell—but not back—and this time we don’t even have Mariah’s resonance to blame. This is all old-fashioned angel-to-demon social interaction here. Or perhaps it’s a just a variation on a typical but particularly annoying Kyriotate-host issue. We are trying to be helpful. Mariah is not letting us be helpful. No matter how much we wish it were otherwise, we can’t help everyone we’d like to. Sometimes, we’re the wrong angel for the job.

(We are the only angel for this job, unfortunately.)

(Fortunately.)

Sometimes, our host just doesn’t want to be saved.

That principle might especially apply to demons.

—

While Mariah’s out, we try to look at the issue from her perspective. Maybe if we can understand her reluctance, we’ll find a way to be more convincing.

Most of us think Mariah shouldn’t need convincing. Even without the threat of Game blackmail swinging over her head, her life in Hell sucks anyway. More than that, it promises to be short. No matter how clever (or lucky) Mariah has been, someday Heaven will catch up to her again, and what are the chances that the next group will let her get off with only Trauma to show for the run-in?

(Not to mention, having had experience with both Heaven and Hell firsthand now, we consider Heaven the better choice by far.)

From (most of) our perspectives, Mariah should already have one foot out the door, even if it’s just to go Renegade. She should be asking us for our help. Instead, we’re practically begging her to take the danger ahead seriously to no avail.

Why?

You’ve trusted our judgment before, Mariah, why are you being stubborn with us now?

—

Mariah returns to the room in a much better mood. We wish we could say the same. The third of us who are doing better are balanced out by the just-under-half of us who are doing worse. She bounces towards the table. “Guess what I picked up?” The bubble has returned to her voice.

“A pair of decent sunglasses?” Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely to have some sign she’s taking our warning seriously.

“Even better! A ticket to one of the Robot Wars semi-finals! And it’s a good seat! Not one of the nosebleeds.”

This is not what we need right now.

“I thought we could go together! You wouldn’t even need your own ticket! It’ll be fun! You’ve been stuck in here for weeks. No wonder you’re getting paranoid.”

On one hand, Robot Wars does sound like the kind of relatively harmless break in the monotony we’d normally be all for. On the other hand, the Game is set up to corner our Habbie, and she needs to pay attention to that very real danger. On the other, other hand, we don’t exactly have the power to lock Mariah in here with us until she understands that simple fact.

(And if we did, would that even help?)

And then another thought occurs to us. Robot Wars is a big event here. At least a quarter of the conversations we’ve overheard while Mariah was out involved demons talking about their entries. A significant portion of the rest involved finding ways of sneaking in without paying the exorbitant ticket prices.

“How much did you pay for this ticket? Do you owe anyone for it?” Please, please tell us she didn’t get Geas-hooked just to have a night out.

Mariah rapidly clicks her nails on the table like she’s not the one being stubborn right now. “Relax, no Lilim were involved with the procurement of this ticket.”

This seems suspicious. “So then, how did you get it?”

“Apparently the tournament entrance fee covers the cost of a ticket for the those who lose the preliminary round. I traded an Impudite most of my Essence and a pair of calipers for his comp ticket. Semi-final C usually has all the least-popular categories, anyway, so tickets tend to run cheaper the others.”

We’re still skeptical, but we shove that thought off to less-occupied minds, so we can focus on what really matters: convincing Mariah to get out of here. “Don’t you get it, the Game will be after you. And you want to watch robots battle each other?”

“Oh sure, why not? The Game will arrive at the same time whether I go or not. Knowing the kinds of bribes they usually ask for, I’ll probably just have to upgrade their Will Shackles in between Tizzy’s jobs.”

(Did her voice just waver? Or are we hearing things?)

We ignore it. “So, what would it take to get you to believe that is not what is going on and that maybe you should be looking towards an exit?”

Mariah hesitates, almost like she’s taking our question seriously. “I need evidence.”

“But I’ve passed on the evidence I have. If you don’t believe that, then I don’t know how else I could prove it without just letting for you to fall into that Lilim’s trap.”

“Not that kind of evidence. Show me why I should leave.”

Oh.

That’s the perspective we missed. We mistook Mariah’s logical-sounding disbelief for actual logic and—more importantly—actual disbelief. We have experience debating (mostly recreationally) with Elohim, and we’ve presented the arguments that could possibly convince one of them. But Mariah isn’t an Elohite. (Yet.) She doesn’t want the logical argument. She wants the emotional one that will push her into acting.

“Shouldn’t your survival be good enough reason? What do you even have here that’s worth getting tangled up in the Game for?”

We [both] know the answer to this. We [I] wish we didn’t. We know one thing we could say to get Mariah to leave and take us with her, if she believed us. If we could say so truthfully. If we could force ourselves to lie and take the note of dissonance, just for this.

(Maybe the dissonance would be worth it, for the right result.)

“I like what I have right here.” Mariah emphatically taps a nail twice on the box that keeps us imprisoned. “You can’t blame me for wanting to keep what little I have here for as long as I can.”

(Oh yes, we absolutely can.)

(We are so tired of trying to befriend someone who sees us as a possession.)

“Nothing lasts forever,” we say, and barely keep the bitterness out of that singular voice. Why should we hide it? Mariah can look down at her her little ring and see our true feelings broadcast anytime she cares to. “So, why put yourself at risk?”

“You keep telling me it’s my choice. Well, you don’t have to like what I choose. And I don’t expect you to understand my reasoning. I forget Heaven angels don’t have the same divine whims we Habbalah are blessed with.”

(No, we don’t, thank God.)

After some silence, Mariah says, “I did pick up some blessed sunglasses while I was out, if that makes you feel better.”

We’re not sure if it does.

—

Given the option between a night out at the robot fights and moping around in an empty supply closet, we’ve chosen the robot fight. The ticket is already paid for, so we might as well take Mariah up on her offer and enjoy the break in monotony.

(And maybe, if we tag along, she’ll be more apt to listen to us later.)

“So, why is this the cheap semi-final?” We ask once the noise on the ground floor hits that level where the source of our voice gets lost in the crowd.

Mariah makes a heroic effort to answer as she squeezes her way through the packed lobby. “The divisions matched up—ooof—for this semi-final are more specialized. Ah—watch it! Everyone only really cares—Ah! Out of my way!—about the winner of the main championship. And since no bot from either the aquatic or the field-approved—ah!—divisions ever makes it past the first finale round, only the real enthusiasts—bless it!—care about those categories, unless their bots are competing in them.”

“Still seems pretty popular.”

“Cheap tickets. Ow—and you should see what it’s like the other nights. Tonight, there’s only about—ah—a 10% chance of trampling.”

Our minds boggle at that. We know what the usual crowds can be like on an ordinary day. What Mariah fights her way through now is a whole different level of magnitude, and then somehow there’s a level of crowd beyond that? Is max crowd size something Technology even wants to innovate? Shouldn’t that be a Media thing?

(Not that we haven’t seen some truly impressive crowds in Heaven. They just tend to be—less aggressive.)

“The other battles here—ow!—are part of the Tandem Team showdowns, ahh!—and those are always exciting—watch where you’re going!—but all of the big name champions are solo bots.” Mariah slows down, and the crowd around us settles into a singular—but still noisy—order. Mariah continues on with her explanation. “Even casual fans will know about Beepo Beepboop or Rocket Dan. But Doctor Jay Kill and Mystery Hide have won the Tandem Team Showdown the last three years running, and no one even gives a shit about them. Their semi-final matches last year weren’t even televised! I had to tune into the radio.”

(We vaguely remember this. At least, we remember the brief period without the Techsynth blaring on in the background.)

“Your ticket.” The gruff voice lacks affect. So, probably a Djinn, or something that’ll approach a Djinn once it fledges.

Mariah shows something to Gruff Voice. It’s too noisy to figure out what.

“Section H. Row 12. You’ll be in the splash zone. One Essence for a poncho.”

Mariah sighs. An Essence is spent and a poncho is handed over. She then walks through a turnstile (a series of clicks) and then clarifies her decision for our sake. “The ponchos look stupid, and my seat is barely in the splash zone, but I get enough unfortunate liquids on me as it is just dropping back to my Heart. Besides, I like this shirt.”

“So, you’ll wear the poncho to maybe avoid getting splashed, but you left the sunglasses behind?” Yes, we [Mariah and I] argued about that while she was getting changed earlier. She had the time to change from one button up shirt to (we presume) a fancier button-up shirt which is what she now covers with a stupid-looking (her words) poncho of crinkly plastic, but she didn’t have any time to grab her shades on the way out.

“That? I told you, sunglasses look suspicious indoors.”

“Why bother buying a pair in the first place, if you’re not going to use them?”

“Because—” Whatever immediate answer comes to mind, Mariah discards. “Because I might as well be prepared? I’ll put them on when I plan on running into a Lilim.” Mariah steps aside to pause while other ticket-holders (and gate-jumpers) moves past her. “Huh. I’m short on Essence. Looks like I’ll have to skip the concessions.”

“Are these concessions anything like the cafeteria food?”

“Basically a saltier and greasier version of it, yes.”

“Doesn’t sound like much of a loss.”

“It’s not, really. The drinks aren’t bad though. The sugar and caffeine more than make up for the mouthfeel and the taste.”

“Mouthfeel is not a concept that should apply to beverages.”

(Seriously, what is with demons and their beverages? Can’t a liquid just be a liquid?)

Mariah neither agrees nor argues with our statement. Instead, she shuffles her way towards the seats and shoos away the demonling pack camped out there. Around, us we hear the sounds of spectators. They’re a grumbling, grumpy bunch—not what we’d expect to hear at a sporting event.

“This is supposed to be fun, right?” We ask, suddenly wary.

“This is the section reserved for the losers of the preliminaries. I hear things can get…personal.”

“Have you ever entered one of these?”

Mariah scoffs. “By the time I was good enough technician to build devices from scratch, I spent the time between Tizzy’s repair jobs on a more important project.” One of her nails taps at the spot in her chest just in front of us. Yes, we get it. “But it seems like anyone else here with even the remotest interest in robots or fame has. Do they have robot battles in—where you’re from? Big tournaments like this or even just underground one-on-one matches.”

We actually don’t know. Heaven is as large and complex and infinite as Hell—maybe even more so for us, who have actually seen more variations of Heaven than we will ever (hopefully) see of Hell—but we’ve never actually attended or heard of any robot battle tournaments. But we also have a hard time imagining them not existing. If enough angels (or blessed souls) were interested in dueling robots, someone would set something up. Surely.

“I don’t know of any off-hand, but—”

We cut our answer off at the sound of tinkling metal. By this point, we can immediately identify Wind Chime Habbie (we know his body mods aren’t wind chimes, but the designation has officially stuck) and we know enough about his social life to identify the probable owner of the humanish footsteps following not far behind him.

Uh oh. We hum enough of a warning that Mariah merely stiffens rather than goes into a fully-fledged flinch when the two Habbies decide to make their presence known to her.

“Oh, hi! Fancy meeting you here! I guess you’re the one Jeff sold his ticket too.” Not-Wind-Chime-Habbie has a chirpy, acidic voice, and she takes the seat to the far side of Mariah.

“Nice poncho.” Wind Chime takes the near side, effectively sandwiching Mariah between them. Even without having eavesdropped on the other two’s social dynamic (they have sex), this move is a power play as obvious as overt resonance use would be. “Afraid of getting a little toxic sludge on you?”

“Excuse me for wanting to keep my clothes clean. Some of us don’t have access to the Laundry Imps.” Mariah voice contains a hint of an eye-roll that belies her body’s trembles around us. She was not expecting these two Habbies to show up nor is she happy to see them.

(Neither are we. Kyriotate-host co-dependence is never cute, but her fellow Fake Angels can get the fuck away from her.)

“Look at you being all practical and focused. You’re such a workaholic, it’s a wonder you even made it down here.” The plastic rustles on the shoulder opposite Chirpy, and we think that Habbie has actually put an arm around Mariah.

“Relax and enjoy this a little bit. These are going to be great fights. Judy the Judge Slayer will absolutely avenge Smitey for us.”

“You entered…Smitey into the Field-approved division? Do either of you even have vessels?”

“It’s Smitetheweak,” Chirpy snaps back—though way too gently compared to her usual manner with Mariah. “And corporeal efficacy doesn’t actually matter. Field-approved is just a catchy name for the C-tier bots.”

“And ours is B-tier at least!” Wind Chime adds.

We make a snorting hum that could almost be laughter. Mariah has more corporeal qualifications than either of these two, and while neither of her Bandmates will admit it, they know it too.

Mariah quickly picks up on that fact and the slight social shift it provides. Her trembling has gone down—not stopped, just stabilized to a level slightly below nervous prey animal—as she realizes that she has the social standing to play the Habbalite Arrogance game with them. “Maybe the functional difference between a Hell-based bot and a bot that can actually do Corporeal work doesn’t matter this year, but I hear qualifications next year will require an Earth-based demo for that category. All the good Techs are already doing it. Did you see the Earth-side demo footage with Spearendipity?” She snaps her fingers. “Now, that was impressive.”

Chirpy almost growls at that. (We wonder if that’s ol’ Smitey’s first round opponent, there.) Wind Chime doesn’t actually say “later” to the increasingly irate Habbie, but the extra crinkle when his hand lands Chirpy’s wrist conveys the same message.

“Spearendipity is a hack.” Wind Chime says smoothly over anything Chirpy might have said. “It only won because it was lucky.”

Usually, these two Habbalah would have Mariah on her hands and knees in the grip of some debilitating emotion by now. The fact that they haven’t yet, even with (possibly deliberate) provocation on Mariah’s part tells a story. They are on good behavior right now. That worries us. Habbies (demons in general) only do that when given sufficient reason.

We need to figure out why before Mariah gets hurt.

—

Despite the fact that everything in Hell is inherently terrible, the event itself would be perfectly fine, enjoyable even, were it not for our added company. The announcers—one impossibly perky Impudite from Media and an equally enthusiastic Balseraph of Technology—provide a detailed running commentary that describes the action almost vividly enough to make up for our visual impairment.

(We wonder if they do the radio broadcast. Probably not. Talent like that is wasted in Hell.)

Mariah, under the pretense of demonstrating her superior knowledge of Corporeal mechanics and Robot Wars to our unwanted companions, fills in the missing pieces—mostly spiels on obscure historical rulings and pointed critiques of the Balseraph’s technical assessments.

(That said, we’re still not sure what happened during that last bout between Synthetic Cyanide and the Junkyard Jackal or how that toxic mist qualifies as Corporeally plausible. Maybe that’s where the obscure historical rulings factor in.)

“Bullshit! That’s bullshit!” Mariah makes a crinkly push against the Habbies as she tries to stand. “There’s no way that would work on Earth. Show us the data! Show us the data!”

In her excitement, she’s stopped trembling. Has she forgotten that she’s a target? Or that she’s surrounded by demons (denizens of Hell) who surely mean her harm, even if neither of us have figured out exactly how yet?

The battle between Judy the Judge Slayer and Spearendipity is an especially fun one to listen in on. Mariah’s voice is particularly animated while she discusses the footage of her favorite—how the retractable spears are actually a clever engineering trick that provides offensive power while also maintaining distance between it and Judy’s circular sawblades. Clearly, she’s having some much-needed fun, and she could not have picked a more perfect way to annoy the other Punishers if she tried. Any Elohite would be proud. Those of us who aren’t irritated with Mariah ourselves are delighted.

(Well, for some definition of delighted. Let’s not get carried away.)

A series of clicks and radio static sounds out from Wind Chime’s approximate waist level. They would be easy to miss over the spectators’ jeers unless the one paying attention had developed pinpoint listening skills, which we have. We draw more of our focus away from Spearendipity’s dramatic deathblow and towards Mariah’s unwanted companions.

Why are they here?

(To see the fights.)

Yes, but to sit with Mariah specifically?

(Their tickets were in this section.)

Yes, but split up? With Mariah between them?

We hone in on the sounds Mariah’s poncho makes and the motions they imply. One Habbalite has been holding her down with a camaraderie-imitating gesture. Another Habbalite rests a hand atop first one's, adding an occasional extra rustle whenever the first one seems ready to drop the act in response to Mariah’s provocations. All the while, Mariah seems oblivious to the subtle communication going on literally behind her back—understandably so as she tries to enjoy the fights and ignore the unwanted contact. But we catch it.

Clicks, no static. Wind Chime sent a response.

That can’t be good, especially considering recent context. Whatever has these two here glued to Mariah’s side involves a third demon (at least) elsewhere, doing something or having done something that requires signals.

(We hope it’s not the Lilim.)

We hum our own improvised signal to Mariah, and pray she catches on to our vibrations before we have to make too much noise.

Mariah’s posture changes slightly but immediately. She doesn’t quite know how to interpret our signal, nor can we clarify right now, but she’s understands that we sent her one, and hopefully that’s enough for her to reach the logical conclusion regarding at least one source of danger.

The hostility from either of other Punishers doesn’t come in all at once. It starts out as a lack of mollification from Wind Chime to Chirpy whenever Mariah fires a verbal shot. Chirpy’s tone gradually takes on a more acidic quality as her replies gradually fall in line with expected demonic norms.

Okay, so that signal Wind Chime received wasn’t a sign to act, but a sign that an act could be dropped.

It’s during the middle of a Tandem Team match (Gremlin Grinder and IMP-ervious versus 02-Hero and Hero-01) that Chirpy’s composure finally breaks. By now, it’s clear to everyone who cares that Mariah deliberately cheers for the opposite teams, and there’s nothing innocent about her remarks on IMP-ervious’ clear defense deficiencies.

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” Chirpy/Acidic finally drops the last pretense of a friendly facade. “And stop cheering for the losers!”

(Not all of Mariah’s picks have won, but most of them have.)

(Not the point.)

“I have every right to cheer for whichever bots I want.” Mariah snaps back. She tries for arrogance, but the tremble has returned, and it leaks to her voice.

Acidic is having none of it. There’s some soft crinkling around Mariah’s shoulders and then a sudden thud as a hand presses down on Mariah’s sternum—exactly where Mariah keeps us.

“You have no right to act like you’re equal to us. You are a pathetic and broken little angel who should be left to a pack of feral Calabim.” The poncho crinkles more as her fingers feel out the edges of Mariah’s body mod. We resist the urge to hum out. Two layers of material separate Acidic from the mod that hides us—but we do not want her investigating further.

Mariah struggles back against Acidic, but to no avail. She doesn’t have the Celestial forces to throw her off, and we don’t have the ability to lend her our own.

(Hypothetically, if we broke out right now, we could even out the struggle between Mariah and the two Habbalah. Or, at least, we could until the actual Angel in Hell gets noticed, at which point, our presence becomes of negative help.)

“You’re a shame to the Choir.” Acidic’s voice has gone deadly soft. “And don’t think any fancy little body mod can save you from that fact.”

(Not for lack of trying.)

“No matter how much pain you can withstand, that Discord will keep you a Pitiful, worthless, excuse of an angel, and everyone knows it. Everyone sees it on you. So, stop pretending like your corporeal experience and mediocre repair skills mean anything more than imp shit, because all those do is keep you useful until you hit your final breaking point.”

Acidic eases up on the pressure, but she doesn’t take her hand off Mariah yet. We hear the Essence she pours into her next move—Resonance usage most likely. Mariah’s trembles grow worse. Whatever hit, hit her hard and deep. “Everyone knows you’re disposable. How long do you think it’ll be before someone decides to take the trash out? It won’t be too much longer, I bet.”

With a vicious laugh, Acidic turns her attention back to the action. Mariah is irrelevant to her now, just garbage for someone else to take care of. The participants for the next fight (Aquatic division, Barium Deep versus the Narwhal Containment Unit) are being brought out. Around us, we feel Mariah attempts to cope through whatever emotion Acidic threw at her, but her whole body shakes around us.

Mariah won’t cope. That certainty reverberates deep throughout our crystal. She barely registers the start of the next match; we can’t expect her think through anything further ahead than that. It’s up to us to figure out this situation for her.

What can we figure out?

Well, to start, we can figure out what we can’t figure out. We’re still blind and stuck in a singular location. We can divide our thought processes (one mind on the trembling, catatonic Mariah, one mind on each of the other Punishers, a third on the bout, and a few minds to spare for other matters), but not our presence. We don’t know who Wind Chime is in contact with (We can make guesses, but we can’t be usefully sure), or what the demon (assumed) on the other end does while Mariah is usefully elsewhere.

So, let’s focus on what we do know.

We know Mariah was sold a ticket to a well-publicized event that would take her out of her workroom at a known time and date. We know the Habbies showed up and then sat in seats on either side of Mariah when logic and social connections should suggest a different arrangement. Therefore, we can reasonably conclude that the Habbies are here (in part) to keep Mariah in a known location until preparations were met.

Mariah barely lasts into the start of the fight. One bot has gone under the liquid—or should anyway (Wind Chime chants “Submerge, Submerge”) while the other has done some kind of maneuver that sends a rain of that same liquid (we won’t assume it’s water) down a short distance from us. Mariah stands up and strides through the row like she’s not about to burst into uncontrollable sobs.

We half expect one of the Habbies to stop her, but Wind Chime remains transfixed on the match, and Acidic only snickers when Mariah stumbles past her.

Of course. Preparations have been met, and now it doesn’t matter to them when Mariah leaves. Except they prefer it to be sooner rather than later. Does it matter to them where she leaves to?

Maybe, maybe not. There might be a trap waiting for Mariah somewhere, or they could just be glad to be rid of her. Let’s assume the former. If there was a trap, where would it be? We follow our recreation of Mariah’s likely route out of here. It could be anywhere on the way: the concession stand, the cafeteria, the lobby with its mass of people, the elevator, the office floor. But the most likely answer is the most obvious.

When Mariah is resonated like this, where does she want to go? Somewhere private.

Back to her workroom.

Our minds snap into that united certainty we get when events in two locations merge into a single full composition. That’s where the trap is. We don’t know its nature, if the danger is immediate or delayed, but we do know that we can’t let Mariah go back until the resonance wears and she’s able to think clearly.

(Clearly by Habbalite standards, anyway.)

We hum out a warning while Mariah fights against the crowd to follow the expected route. Slow down. Listen to us. But what’s our small vibration in Mariah’s chest against the depth of this artificial Panic taking over her. We know the feeling from Mariah’s own weak resonance. What mush does she feel to get it from a Bandmate who is better (more effective) with her Resonance and who put Essence into making it stick.

No. Hums won’t work here.

“Please proceed to the outside.” We tune our voice to be more machine-like and switch our Helltongue cadence to mimic the one used by recorded intercom announcements. The ‘please’ is perhaps a touch too polite for one of the ever-present Security drones, but we do well enough that we’ll blend into the soundscape for anyone not already aware of us.

That misplaced voice of ours redirects Mariah’s panicked attention towards us. She comes to as complete a standstill as she can while the perpetual crowd pushes her this way and that. That’s fine. A temporary freeze suits the situation better than continued flight in the wrong direction.

“Details will be provided once a new location has been secured.”

Our Habbie starts to move again, a sharp turn into the flow of the crowd and away from the elevators. The sounds change as she leaves the indoors behind. Echoes dampen then diminish, and actual rain—likely the acid kind—patters down against the pavement.

(Good thing Mariah picked up a poncho.)

She freezes again.

Right. She’s still under effect of the resonance, for a few more minutes at least.

We decide on a different voice to mimic. Multiple voices, actually. One shifts from the brisk instruction of a building security drone to the cool affirmation of a self-help recording, while another chimes in with the slight background hiss of cassette tape playback.

(Mimicry itself isn’t inherently Dissonant. Good to know.)

“Breathe in 2, 3, 4. Hold, 2, 3, 4. Out 2, 3, 4.”

We repeat the instructions. This time, Mariah follows along, using those voluntary breaths to bring the rest of her form’s reactions under control. We keep repeating them until the trembling around us stops.

“Resonance wore,” Mariah mutters. “I’m fine now.”

We choose not to debate that last bit. “Please proceed to a safe location.”

“But you told me not to—”

We go back to the brisk instructional tone. It’s slightly out of place now, but hopefully not so much so that it draws outside attention to Mariah. “Please proceed to an uncompromised location. Details will be provided once a new location has been secured.”

“Understood.”

—

The safe place Mariah guides us to takes us into another building, up several flights of stairs, back outside, up a ladder of dubious stability, and finally to what we assume is an unused rooftop space. On most sides, we’re surrounded by industrial-grade grinds and clanks, while signs of traffic and habitation only occasionally waft up from below. Behind us are various indoor noises filtered through cinder block walls and barely perceptible even to us.

“Happy?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “Now tell me, what the fuck was that about earlier?”

We summarize the situation in the arena as we understand it: the signals we picked up from Wind Chime, Chirpy keeping Mariah pinned down and then resonating her into a panic, the suspicion that a trap was set up in her workroom while she was out watching the fights.

Mariah sighs. “First the rumors you overheard while I was out, and now this. You are a paranoid menace, Kira. You know that, right?”

“One of us needs to be. And right now, it’s not you.”

Mariah slides down the wall into a sitting position. Her nails scratch circles atop a hard surface. We can’t tell the flavor of this silence, and right now, we wonder if an argument would be preferable.

(At least she’s sufficiently low on Essence that we don’t have to worry about her resonating us.)

“You’re probably right,” Mariah says at last. “There are probably a number of traps just waiting for me to walk into them. This is Hell, after all. The majority of its celestials are demons, and it’s not like my Choirmates are much better. It’s simply that I don’t care anymore. I’ve made up my mind.”

She pauses here for dramatic effect.

(It’s working.)

“I’m going to let the Game get me.”

(What? Why?)

“What?! Why?!”

“What do I have to lose? My lifespan has had a time limit ever since my research career ended. Remember what I told you about Tizzy’s assistants? How most of them only last two or three years. If it’s not a failure to meet quota that does me in, then it would be capture and Force disbandment from the Heaven Angels, which has already almost happened to me once. And Zarielle is right: I am a broken Habbalite. That’s obvious to anybody who gets close enough to see my Discord. There’s no test I can pass that’ll move me to a safer and more prestigious assignment.

(Not while she’s attached to Hell. But isn’t that what we’re trying to help her with?)

“So what if the Game wants to me to inform on Tizzy? Why shouldn’t I go along with it? She’s a horrible boss. She deserves the betrayal. Sure, I become the Game’s disposable pawn, but how is that a change from the status quo? At least this way, I can pass some of my suffering on to her.”

(She makes a point. What do we care if the Game makes life more difficult for the demons who run this place? Maybe we should be cheering that on. It’s the host who makes the choices, right?)

“It’ll be good for you too, Kira. I won’t betray you, even if the Game tortures me. I swear I won’t!” Her voice is thick with emotion, and we believe she actually intends this. “You’ll stay safe until someone opens that box and breaks your catcher. Then, you’ll be free of this place. Isn’t that what you’ve wan—”

“Stop that.” Our voices speak in a quavering unison even as the crystal’s structure locks us in place as firmly as ever. “We don’t want your sacrifice. We’ve never wanted it. We’ve never wanted you to suffer because of us. That’s—that’s not what we’re about.”

Mariah goes still. “Then what do you want from me, if not your freedom?”

“We do want our freedom. Hell is fucking terrible. It’s banal when it’s not actively horrific. Our every action puts us in danger of getting caught, and we’re not sure whether to credit God or Lucifer, but it’s only through some kind of miracle that nobody has found out about us yet.” We pause to give a multi-part sigh. “But even more than our freedom—we don’t want our presence here to have come to nothing. And if you sacrifice yourself with intention to save us—which isn’t even a guaranteed salvation—then that’s what will happen.”

“There’s no such thing as safety for me anymore, Kira. Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to tell me?”

“No such thing as safety, but there are risks you can survive. Risks that will lead you somewhere better. And I want that for you. And not just for you alone, but for…all the ways you might end up making the Symphony better.”

(Okay, our singular voice has returned.)

“But why? Why does it even matter to you? Why can’t you let me choose this and take the chance to save yourself?”

“Because I did those calculations a long time ago,” we say with false and bitter cheer. “Sure, if some hapless employee here with an engineering side hobby tries to scrap your device for parts, I might escape—if I’m lucky. But it’s just as likely that the Game will confiscate it as part of their investigation. Or maybe Tizzy’s next assistant will find me instead. What happens next in either of those scenarios? The Game tortures me until I either die or Fall. Your replacement finds me and hands me over as part of their quota, and you’ve been very, very vivid about what happens in some of those experiments.”

“But you’ll have—”

“If you sacrifice yourself, Mariah, then what good will my time here have done? Not a single bit. What if I do escape? What does this time in my life become except some terrible void in my history—months and years that could have been spent actually helping people instead of…I don’t know…making missing supply recovery a little easier for someone who winds up dead anyway?”

“You’ve done more than that.” Mariah says vehemently, “Without you I’d have—”

“And what good does any of that do, once you’ve sacrificed yourself on the altar of Infernal politics? Why is going out as a pawn of the Game preferable to trying for redemption? Or even just going out as a Renegade. At least then you’ve made a stand.”

Mariah hesitates. Her fingernails tap out the rhythm of her thoughts. “You know what my corporeal-side job is. Do you really think Heaven would show me mercy? They could just as easily let me burn up in a Tether without a second thought.”

“Yes.” We say without hesitation because this is a Truth that goes down the the very first Forces that Mother cohered together to form us. “If you repented, you would be forgiven. And if you walked into a divine tether with rescued angels in tow, that gesture alone would be…” We trail off to look for the right word. “Immense.”

“Everything we could want.” Another voice of ours chimes in.

“Worth more than our own freedom.” A third appends.

Mariah goes silent again and cedes the soundscape to the harsh whirrs and grinds of the machines around us and the shouts and traffic from the streets below. Above us, acidic (probably) rain hits against a ledge in a soft rhythm. It’s as soothing as we think Tartarus ever gets without the Habbalite resonance getting involved.

(We suppose intoxicating substances might help too, but it’s not like we have the ability find out.)

(Not that it would be a good idea if we could.)

Mariah sighs and stands up. When she speaks again, her voice is as perfectly composed as any Elohite’s might be in a neutral state. “I suppose the smartest thing for me to do in this situation would be to keep my options open for as long as possible. So, tell me, Kira. What is your plan to get us out of here?”

Chapter 29: Raye keeps the options open.

Chapter Text

As we spend about twenty phrases worth of interaction hashing out possible plans to Mariah, we encounter two problems with our attempts to focus on anything beyond the next couple of hours.

First, our longer-term objectives [Mariah’s and mine] do not converge as well as we’d [I’d] hope. When she tells us she’s keeping her options open, she means just that, no actual commitment to escape implied.

In order, her preferences seem to be: Go Renegade with her pet Kyriotate obediently staying in the force catcher; redeem after her pet Kyriotate pledges devotion to her; bravely become a martyr to the Game to free her pet Kyriotate, who will—theoretically—feel very, very sorry that she let such a wonderful and worthy angel sacrifice herself on the Kyriotate’s behalf.

In order, our preferences are: Mariah redeems after setting the other angels free; Mariah goes Renegade after setting the other angels free; Mariah redeems in general; Mariah goes Renegade. Anything that leaves her alive and in the position pass her information on to Heaven is acceptable. Our own survival here is a nice-to-have. (We won’t ask Mariah to leave us behind, but we’re not vain enough to believe that the value of our life alone outweighs those of a dozen others.)

Second, we are sorely lacking in infernal expertise. Sure, we know more about Tartarus first-hand than most angels do—anything more than zero is too much first-hand experience for a Heaven-born angel to have with any part of Hell, but our stay here hasn’t made us an expert in anything beyond the door of Mariah’s supply closet. Our experience here doesn’t even make us an expert in that place. Bits and pieces, yes. How it functions as Mariah’s office when she’s in Hell and as a semi-private social space when she’s not. How sounds fill it. But we don’t even know what color the walls are painted, assuming that the walls even have paint.

We start throwing around ideas, and we can hear Mariah’s voice getting more exasperated as she has to explain to us that Tartarus (or Hell in general) doesn’t work the way we assume it does. No, hiring enough gremlins to be a distraction would be prohibitively expensive. No, the facility layout doesn’t allow for an inconspicuous exit via the secured area. No, there’s no way to steal Damp Mop Djinn’s prized ray gun (!) without immediately getting splatted.

We can’t see Mariah’s face of course, but by the end of this unproductive conversation, we imagine it wears an expression similar to the one we used to make in dog hosts when trying to help our Wordmates with paperwork. So, it’s a relief for both of us [her and I] when she shifts subjects and asks: “You normally hear what’s going on in my workroom when when I’m not there. Suppose there really is a third demon setting up a trap while we’re out. Tell me, who do you think our suspects are?”

“The obvious one is Brenda—that Lilim out for that Geas on you. We’ve overheard her in a number of conversations while you were out—including a few with those Habbies. Apparently they owe her multiple favors. She might have asked them to get you out of the way for a bit.”

“Anyone else?”

We try to remember who else in the room seemed particularly concerned with Mariah. Or her personal belongings at least. “What about that Impudite who sold you the ticket…Jeff, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s his deal? You said he had the ticket because his robot lost in the preliminary rounds. Was it some kind of alligator laser-cannon thing?”

“It might have been. Hard to say.”

“Hard to say?”

Mariah sighs. “There’s the whole mecha-reptile trend going on right now. I read a feature about it in the spring issue of Mad Popular Science. Crocodiles. Komodo Dragons. One Balseraph made a whole colony of mechanical poison dart frogs that shot actual poison darts. That explode.”

(Wait? Aren’t frogs amphibians?)

(Not important.)

“Anyway, an alligator bot wouldn’t surprise me. Impudites are more susceptible to trends than most other Bands or Choirs. So what makes him a suspect? Besides the fact that he sold me the ticket.”

“If he’s the Impudite I’m thinking about, he wants the reliquary he thinks my Essence makes that device of yours. He and that Lilim were arguing over what to do about it. She wants to use your Need for the box to hook you. He wants to use the alleged energy source for his own project. Apparently laser cannons take a lot of Essence to run.”

“Lasers at any weapon-grade scale take a lot of Essence. He’d be better off with actual projectiles,” Mariah laughs briefly, harshly, then brushes the subject aside before too many of our minds can grab hold of it. “Never mind that. Anyone else?”

One or two minds consider the matter for a second before we vocalize our denial. “Not likely. Everyone else seemed more interested in other supplies. Maybe those Habbies, if the third demon is doing them favor instead of the other way around. But I can’t see why they’d bother.”

Mariah paces back and forth in a short line while rain hits a surface overhead. “So, based on our suspects, we’re probably looking at a subtle trap rather than an overt one. Neither one of them have a reason to kill me. Nor would they want to destroy the surrounding area. What are the chances they’re in collusion?”

We recall that conversation. “Not terribly likely. The Impudite didn’t seem too eager to accept her proposal. If it weren’t for the electrocution trap, he would have just taken the box himself.”

The pacing stops. There’s a sudden clap in front of us, punctuation for an insight Mariah has just had. “Right! So we’re looking at a subtle trap. Probably surveillance. Given our suspects’ motives, that’s the most likely angle for both of them. If our third demon is the Lilim, she might be looking to collect blackmail material. If she’s not somehow looking to intersect me on the way through the office. If it’s the Impudite, he’s probably more interested in seeing how I disarm the traps on my device. Get the energy source and avoid dealing with the Lilim! Ha! This is great!”

We don’t feel nearly so confident. “Is it really?”

“Trust me, Kira. I can manage surveillance. If you can avoid incriminating us before everything’s cleared out, we’ll be just fine.”

We know Mariah isn’t using her Resonance on us because we are not reassured in the slightest.

—

The gap in our expertise becomes even more evident as Mariah navigates her way back to her supply closet-slash-workroom. Our previous experience involves an elevator and goes through a crowded office floor. The route she takes us on now has no elevators, a lot more stairs and hard walls that make even a single set of footsteps reverberate throughout the whole stairwell. No matter that this stairwell is mostly empty, it’s actually not that much quieter than the lobby.

“You don’t have to go through the office?” We ask, no louder than a faint buzz. Even if Mariah were walking with hundreds of others, no one but her could hear us.

Mariah pauses, and lets out a breath. “So long as I’m willing to climb five flights of stairs. Which usually, I’m not. The elevator is right there and so much more convenient. But if I’m trying to avoid a particular receptionist until we have more information, then five flights of stairs it is.”

We hum our approval. Now that the resonance attack has fully worn, Mariah is capable of evaluating the options in front of her and choosing her next actions deliberately. As deliberately as any Habbalite ever does, we suppose.

She’ll fit right in, once she’s fixed up.

(If she fixes up.)

Ah, isn’t that always the question?

—

When Mariah walks in to her workroom, we immediately sense an overall change to the flavor of silence that fills the space. Yes, silence has flavors. It still takes us time to pinpoint the change—a soft static undertone of tapes (multiple) doing their reel-to-reel spin. As Mariah suspects, the room is set up for surveillance. That’s about as much as we can tell from the sounds alone.

Audio-only input has its limitations even for us, and we’re overwhelmingly glad we’re not in the version of this scenario where we stayed behind and Mariah went off to watch the Robot Wars alone. Sure, we might have heard the set up process as it took place—but assuming the demon worked alone and wasn’t in the (somewhat common) habit of talking to themselves—how would we have figured out what was being done?

And if we had figured it out in time, then how could we have warned Mariah without revealing our presence to an observer?

(Worse, the Mariah in this scenario would have returned in the middle of a resonance-induced breakdown.)

We consider that scenario for a moment, and then let those questions go—just gone, not passed to a deeper mind for rumination. What’d be the point? No matter who gets their way and how, our job as Mariah’s watchdog is coming to an end.

Still, we’re glad that Mariah navigates this situation easily, if grumpily, without our input. “Does everyone think I’m an idiot just because I have resonance troubles?” She rips a long strip of tape off a surface. “Or do they not think about why this place hasn’t been wired up in years? And it’s such a clumsy set up too! A gremlin with a single Ethereal force could have caught that something was up. They set up the tapes meant to store the footage in this room! Actual tapes! Whoever it was didn’t even try to piggyback on Tizzy’s old set up.”

She hasn’t given a signal that it’s safe to speak, so we don’t share our thoughts. It’s probably for the best, considering how mopey most of us feel right now.

(Being caged off from information is NOT a state we’re used to. We don’t like it.)

“Just going off the placement of the equipment, I bet the Impudite did it.” Mariah’s tone is casually friendly now that she’s successfully identified and disabled the current threat. “The cameras were exclusively focused on the table with my device on it. The microphone was planted underneath the edge of the table, probably in case a spoken password or voice print was involved. I could escape both just by doing data entry at the computer and turning up the radio. This facility really doesn’t attract the brightest stars.”

(What does that say about her?)

“Unless they burnt out early like I did,” Mariah appends. “Anyway, it should be safe enough for you to speak. So, lay it on me. What’s your next proposal? You’re on what, idea number thirty-seven?”

Yes, we might be running out of ideas. Does she have to be so pointed about it?

—

While the plurality of our minds are busy moping about our limitations, a better minority have decided to get to work on a new kind of plan. We’re back in the box for now, and Mariah taps away at the computer for some ‘emergency data entry’—however that gets defined here.

We know what most of us want. We have an idea of what Mariah wants. So, in theory, we just need to find the overlap, and then instead of coming up with a whole plan start to finish, we hone in on the smaller pieces that fit into that space.

Mariah wants to keep her options open for as long as possible. That short-term goal doesn’t seem an objectionable starting point. In fact, it seems to us like a blank page ready to be filled in. As Mariah chooses to act or not to act over the next few weeks, certain paths will open up or close off the way that marks on a page begin to suggest a composition. Our trick then might be to figure out which actions keep the options we like open and—more importantly—which ones will stop Mariah from exercising the worst of her options—the one where she walks, smiling, into the Game’s trap.

(This seems like a very Elohite way to frame the situation. Maybe we should embrace that.)

Once we come up with something that might work, then there’s the question of how to get Mariah to listen to us. Were she a human host of ours, this would be trivial. A sufficiently superstitious human will take almost anything framed in the right situation—even something as small as a hastily-scribbled note on the fridge—as a sign from something—God, the Universe, their own subconscious, et cetera—to act. It’s a neat trick to preserve free will for our hosts while steering them towards the options we think suit them better. Unfortunately, a little note on the fridge isn’t within our capabilities. Even if we could somehow acquire a paper and writing utensil (maybe that too hard pencil she keeps around) and write something down, we doubt she even has a refrigerator in here.

What we do have is the power of suggestion, and Mariah’s own desperate desire for our esteem. She wants the approval of her fellow angels (‘angels’) down here, and right now we’re the only source she has available. Where else can she go? Those two Habbalah who regularly torment her? The visitors she runs into in the cafeteria? Our Choirmates she captures? None of them can (or will!) give her what we can hand out with a simple word.

(If that Lilim ever had the opportunity to see that Need in Mariah, maybe she’d find a way to get those two Habbalah to pretend to approve of Mariah for a week or so. That in itself might land the Lilim a big enough Geas to keep Mariah in Hell.)

What those thoughts in minds, we come up with two moves to suggest.

—

The first move is the insane one, especially when Mariah delves into what Heart relocation means for a resident of Hell—if they’re even given a Heart to move in the first place. All angels have a Heart, but not all demons do. Free Lilim don’t apparently, nor do most demons assigned to strictly Hell-side work. It is, Mariah tells us, a number of crimes stacked atop each other to move one’s Heart out of its designated location. Oh, but things do get shuffled around all the time in the central laboratories of Tartarus. The so-called ‘Genius Archangel’ has as much experimental curiosity towards the nature of Hearts as he does any other bit of the Symphony.

(We’re summarizing here.)

So we ask Mariah if in the shuffle she could find a way to discreetly borrow her Heart for a bit. If she chooses not to run, then it should be as easy (if not easier) to sneak her Heart back in. And if she does decide to run, having it nearby will give her a crucial head start. A Heart is a direct line to the celestial who owns it. Breaking it quickly and discreetly takes out the most obvious tracking method, which gives her more choices once she’s on the run—even more so if the time and location of Heart break remain a surprise.

“Can you move it? Is it physically possible, I mean?”

“Well, sure. Sometimes, when it’s been left in a particularly bad spot, I’ll put it somewhere better. Not that it ever seems to help. If it’s not suspended on a hook ten meters in the air, then it’s submerged in a vat of acid.” Mariah taps her nails thoughtfully. “Moving it more than a couple of rooms over would be tricky to pull off…but with a big enough box and the right excuse…Other people get misfiled all the time, why not me?”

“Exactly! Why not you? Come up with an excuse and walk it right out of there.” We can’t lie in Helltongue without dissonance, but apparently encouraging another towards deception is peachy keen, so long as we mean it honestly. Which, right now, we do.

—

The second move is the completely sensible one. For one, it’s not a capital crime—or any kind of crime—at all; it’s more of a a variation on the exact brand of suggestion we regularly gave the humans we helped—hosts and non-hosts alike. For another, our reasons for this one are multifaceted and multi-functional, and the more reasons to do something, the better, right?

(We’ve always thought so.)

The suggestion: Mariah should start a new project.

That sounds reasonable, right? Everyone needs a hobby—especially celestials who have a much longer lifespan than your average human—and that goes double for those who may be going through a bit of a stressful situation.

(Our hobbies: Faltering attempts at echolocation, sound mimicry, disco.)

It’s even more important for Mariah. She needs something to distract her from what’s looming up ahead, and what better way to go about it than to start a new project? Side projects are universal amongst Vapulans—at least among all the ones who come in here to talk about them. More so, the need for new components will give Mariah a ready excuse to scout around in odd places and a whole set of minor needs for the Lilim to catch instead of the really Big and Obvious one that will see Mariah brought in by the Game for more than just a little blackmail if the Big Habbie over at the Central Laboratory doesn’t decide to take Mariah’s neuroses personally first.

So it’s a little shocking that this proposal gets a lot more resistance from Mariah than the actual crime we advocated for earlier.

(Maybe it’s the project we suggested.)

“So, why exactly would I want to dismantle the box I keep you in?” Her nails tap on the table with a slow and ominous unison.

(Oh, yes. It’s definitely the project.)

“Plenty of reasons. The core of the Lilim’s scheme—at least the one she planned out in front of me—involves your dependence on that device. Your Impudite friend (mandatory sarcasm marker here) wants the energy source, and she’s going to use that threat to extract her Geas. Why not let him have it?”

“So, what do the modifications have to do with that?”

“If you hand it over as is, how long will it take that Impudite to realize that there was probably never a usable source of Essence in here in the first place? Doing something with it give you the opportunity to make it less suspicious.”

Mariah’s voice goes cold, the way it tends to sound before she Punishes us. “So, let’s say I hand my device—modded or otherwise—over to the Impudite. That means the Lilim doesn’t get the Geas on me and I don’t need to run. So, what do I do with you the next time Tizzy sends me up?”

That’s a reason too if not one we’ll tell Mariah. No matter how much we try to prepare her, she still can’t accept our [her and my] eventual separation. Maybe her concrete action of dismantling the cage will help reinforce the larger idea: We’re no more her possession than she is ours.

(We can hope, anyway.)

(We also think our Habbie approaches Balseraphic levels of delusion if she still thinks the status quo isn’t due to implode.)

“Whatever you want to do, really. You could take me with you…hide me in a shirt pocket and stick me in the laundry bag…plant me on the Paper Shredder…shove me under one of those fans on that rooftop...”

Mariah laughs, but it’s a strained sound. Our attempt at humor does too little to cover our unspoken intentions. The specific tone we have to use in Helltongue to avoid dissonance (akin to explaining the joke as it’s being told) doesn’t help our delivery. “What if I just go along with the Lilim’s plot? What then?”

“Then that’s still a choice you can make.” We’re (mostly) resigned to the reality that Mariah might take exactly zero of our suggestions. The possibility seems likely enough that only a few of us dare to remain optimistic. Still, we let our neutral but honest statement hang in the air for a bit. Well, not exactly neutral—our opinion must be perfectly clear to Mariah especially considering her mood ring—but the words themselves are objectively true. Until Mariah turns down the Lilim’s offer directly, that option does, in fact, remain open.

Then, we continue:

“We both have our own wildly differing agendas, and the only overlap between them I’m sure of is that neither of us want to close off too many exits too early. Doing that requires some pro-activity. Think about your own intentions: Is not handing the box over to the Impudite enough to keep us hidden? What’s to stop the Game from investigating your belongings once you’re done being useful to them? Do you think they won’t be able to figure it out? Or did you not mean it when you said you wouldn’t betray us?”

Mariah takes her sweet time coming up with an answer. We do believe her declaration of intent up there the roof was sincere—we wouldn’t try using it as a pressure point if we didn’t. But did she think her intention through before she declared it? Or was her brain still too gunked up from her Bandmate’s resonance to think about what that non-betrayal might entail?

For us to have any chance at safety, Mariah has to do more than merely refuse to speak under duress. (A mostly irrelevant matter we still have our doubts on. We’ve been told the Game is more than capable of persuasive duress.) She also has to consider the other giveaways. If someone knowingly searches this room for a loose angel, they will find us. Presence always leaves marks. Hasn’t she ever had to put together the pieces of someone’s life using only the traces they leave lying around?

(Probably not. Doesn’t seem like something she’d care about.)

(Except she’s spent years hunting down our Choirmates. How else could she track them down consistently?)

Mariah custom-built this cage to hold us, and that intended function will leave a mark long after the Kyriotate herselves either escapes or gets stashed away elsewhere. And what happens when someone else gets close enough to really look at it. Depends on who that someone is, right? That Impudite? He’ll probably won’t care too much. Maybe he’ll be angry that he was cheated out of a power source, but whatever. The Game? That’s the serious problem. They’ll be more likely to investigate the discrepancy, and—if they’re anything like Judgment—Mariah’s refusal to talk will only heighten their suspicion.

“I can tell when you’re manipulating me.” Mariah says at last, “You're not that subtle, not with that dissonance-enforced honesty getting in your way. You only get away with it most of the time because I let you.”

The subject shift is a non-answer. We should call her out, but enough of us are sufficiently curious to allow it. “And why would you do that?”

Mariah laughs out loud. “Because this is Hell. And I find it charming that a good little Heaven angel like yourself will resort to the same strategies down here as the rest of us.” Her voice goes almost tender, like she holds some kind of affection for us, real or otherwise. “I can’t hold it against you. Everyone has an agenda. Yours at least doesn’t involve active harm to me, even when your suggestions are objectively insane.”

Now it’s our turn to laugh. “Yes, but you’re a Habbalite. We don’t expect objectivity out of you.”

(Not yet.)

Mariah taps her nails on the table again. She seems to be considering our suggestion more seriously now, but what information beyond a few tell-tale sounds do we have to judge that by?

“Do you really think these modifications are necessary? I mean, to keep the Game from getting at you.” She asks at last. “Tell me directly in a way that would give you dissonance if it were were false.”

“Yes, I think that step is necessary if I’m to have any chance at escaping the Game’s notice. Kyriotate’s honor.”

She pauses, no audible gestures this time, just the sounds of concentration on whatever repair job we’ve temporarily distracted her from. That’s fine. Busy hands make for a busy mind, and Mariah needs the time to think right now.

“Fine,” she says, when she sets a piece aside. “Once I’m done with the repairs on this batch, I’ll start planning out some mods. No guarantees beyond that. Is that a concession enough for you?”

“It’s a start,” we allow.

—

Mariah doesn’t talk to us at all after that. We can hear the noise of object repair, the pacing of her footsteps across the room (her feet shuffle a bit less than they used to), and the scratch of her favorite pencil on cheap paper. We can tell she’s thinking, but she doesn’t share any of her thought process with us. Our further input is neither wanted nor needed, and our one attempt to contribute gets us snapped at.

(Not resonated, though. Does it cost too much Essence when Mariah knows there’s a looming threat? Has she lost her instinct to use it altogether?)

At some point, Mariah leaves the room and stays gone for a while. And then another while beyond when she should be back from any facility-mandated breaks. And a third while after which could account for basic errands.

An Impudite comes in eventually—our suspected culprit. His leather wings make soft beats against the air as he approaches Mariah’s table. We hear the shift of furniture clicks as he retrieves the tapes he set up to record—the ones he hoped to record—followed by very quick footsteps as he leaves.

Yes, that’s definitely our culprit. That’s probably good. Less chance that he and the Lilim are in collusion. Though we wonder how long that will last. He’ll probably be more amenable to doing things her way once he realizes that the tapes he’s snatched are some bootleg copies of the Spearendipity Corporeal Demo and a Tech-Synth mix-tape Mariah spent the last few days recording.

Anyway, we can mark that box checked and figure out how (and if!) we’ll report this when Mariah gets back.

Now, if only Mariah would come back.

—

Mariah bursts into the room just as we’re in the middle of listing out that the misfortunes most likely to have befallen her while she was out.

(Good news, it probably won’t be the Game that gets her. Bad news, that doesn’t narrow down the hazards nearly as much as we’d hope.)

The door barely slams shut before Mariah starts babbling. “That was one of the scariest things I’ve ever had to do!” She sounds breathless and excited, hyped-up on adrenaline, the way we’ve only seen her a few times—and even then always under another Habbie’s resonance. “It took a lot of work to evade all the scientists in that building, not to mention the guards! But I did it! I actually managed to smuggle it out!”

(She doesn’t dare name the ‘it’. We don’t dare make her.)

“So where is it now? Did you bring it here?”

Mariah sets down a box on the table, and we hear her unpack a number of components. Thunk, thunk, thunk, but nothing glassy—nothing that potentially sounds like a Heart. (But then, what do we know about the sounds of Infernal Hearts? We’re projecting from our experience with Divine ones) “No, it’s stashed elsewhere for now. Don’t worry about it.”

“What’s in that box?”

“Boxes,” Mariah corrects. “One’s another project from Tizzy, and then the other has the components for your side project. If that Impudite wants a power source, he’ll get one. Assuming he can get past the spears and avoid triggering any explosions. It’s only fair that he has to work for it, don’t you think?”

Let this be our reminder: Soon-to-be-former-Vapulans are still Vapulans.

—

Soon after Mariah starts work on her project—the conversion our cage into an actual power source and with some additional booby-traps to make it exciting—we move into her chest cavity full-time, at least for now.

(We leave it up to her what happens to us if she somehow gets the chance to do her Corporeal work again. She’ll either take us with her, or she won’t. Simple as that.)

“I spent a lot of time building this box,” Mariah says with a strained note of nostalgia. We hear the subtle scrape of a screw being turned into place. “Almost a decade from the initial design phase to a completed build capable of securely holding—and hiding—a specimen just like you. And now…”

“And now?” We really didn’t need the reminder that to everyone else here, we really are just another specimen.

“And now it seems like the best way to keep you safe from discovery is to modify it to longer fit you. Ironic, isn’t it?”

(Is it? We’re not actually sure. Irony is one of those literary concepts, and that’s never been our area of creative specialty.)

“Maybe,” we allow.

—

With Mariah having taken our two suggestions, we start looking at some other aspects of our ideal outcomes—at least as far as our limited information allows them to, which is, sadly, not very far at all. We don’t even know the basics, like what is the exact layout of the secured area? Or what other unconventional exits does this building have? We can (and do) ask Mariah for more information, but she remains elusive.

“If I choose to run, I already know my route out of Hell. I don’t need your help.” she pauses, then adds. “Emphasis on the if, Kira.”

(Oh, come on! Mariah is totally set up to run.)

We’re unsure if Mariah’s bluffing or not. We have as much a way to find out as we do of getting better information, which is to say our only possible source isn’t telling. So let’s assume she’s telling the truth. Mariah knows her escape route of Hell. Fair enough. We’ll give her that, what with her having years of experience navigating this place and the abilities of sight and self-locomotion besides. Our minds can focus elsewhere.

Where might we be of service to her? What might she not know?

How to get to Heaven, for one.

‘Get to’ in the logistical sense, anyway. The redemptive process itself is somewhat beyond our capabilities, so the best we can do is hand her over, gift-wrapped, to someone at a divine Tether and let a willing Archangel do the rest. (Most Archangels should be willing, at least.)

Let’s assume (reasonably) that Mariah breaks her Heart and immediately flees. Where does she end up? She won’t use any of her now Former Prince’s tethers. That would be far too risky. Instead, she’ll probably jump directly to her last Earthly location. So then, let’s assume (slightly less reasonably) that the very small time we spent with her up there reflects both her usual geographic range and habits. If that’s true, then that places her usual range a bit further south than we’re used to, and her preferred arrival location will be reasonably isolated from both celestials and humans.

We can work with that. We know of at least one Lightning Tether that’ll be within a day’s drive of any likely arrival point, and unless she leaves with the Game or Technology hot on her trail, she should be able to get there without too much pursuit. We don’t know if Mariah is specifically suited to Lightning—she doesn’t seem passionate about the kind of research Lightning specializes in—but we do trust in that Archangel’s ability to be practical.

(Yes, we realize that Mariah might decide to try out the Renegade lifestyle. If so, we’ll figure out what to do then. She might find herself flying solo much earlier than she realizes.)

We’ll save that one for later. What other ideas can we offer her?

Our Habbie wavers from day to day on whether she plans to run or stay. So, even if she has her escape route set up, it’s unlikely she’ll choose to run unless pressed by an outside force (not us) to make an impulse decision, which means we have to assume her window to escape will be much narrower than either of us [Mariah or I] prefer.

We play through abstract versions of that scenario. Mariah runs. Someone immediately starts to chase. She’s eight forces, and only two of them are Celestial. Yes, she’s fast-ish for a demon, but ‘for a demon’ and ‘-ish’ are the key terms here. If a Hell-side chase happens, someone will be fast enough to catch her even without access to one of the many motorized vehicles in Tartarus. And that’s before we consider what little we know of the security system. That shield that keeps the angels in the secured area from leaving Hell will presumably work on Mariah too if someone gets the chance to trigger it.

What Mariah needs is a distraction. We should suggest one.

Many of our mouths smile at that concept, and most of them aren’t very nice at all.

—

The problem with suggesting a specific distraction to Mariah is this:

We want something (desperately) from her, and she wants something from us (presumably equally as desperately). In theory, we should set up some kind of trade wherein Mariah does a favor for us, and in return we give Mariah what she wants. In practice, it won’t work. We can’t give Mariah what she wants; we probably wouldn’t want to if we could, and even if we did, the whole thing would end in mutually-assured disaster. Merely asking for that favor will turn into the same argument we’ve had a dozen times since Mariah lost her original vessel.

If she runs Renegade, will we stay with her?

No.

If she defects to Heaven, will we stay with her forever?

No. (Nothing is forever, anyhow.)

What if she frees our fellow captives in the secured area? What about then?

We don’t know.

We might say yes, and we might even mean it. That ‘yes’ might convince her. It might not. Their freedom might be beyond her capabilities. Or it might not be. If she can smuggle her Heart out of its authorized location maybe she can do the same for our Choirmates.

“You need to set up a distraction,” we say, while Mariah feeds a box of old documents to the Paper Shredder. Mariah calls it standard audit-prep, but there’s a frisson to her as she commands the Calabite to do her bidding.

(We wonder where she stashed that Heart of hers.)

She catches on to the implication. “What kind of distraction? Huh? Free the other Heaven angels here?”

“Yes. If that happens, no one will pay any attention to the missing Habbalite. They’ll have a bigger emergency to deal with.”

Mariah hesitates. She could make the demand we anticipate. “It’s more difficult than you think it is, Kira. Too many people, too closely watched, too much security. They’ll know who to blame. Too many problems for too little pay off.”

That’s our cue right there. We know what Mariah will take the risk for. We could make the offer directly.

We don’t.

“Right,” Mariah says over our silence, “If I run, then it’s you and me. That’s all I care about, and I won’t risk either of us to save anyone who was dumb enough to get caught.” To the Paper Shredder she says, “Destroy this.”

“This situation is bigger than both of us,” we say, in Angelic, where we can speculate freely. “It might be difficult, but if you don’t do anything, you’ll regret it later.”

“Not large enough, if you’re not willing to—You! Stop that.” Mariah addresses that last bit to the Paper Shredder, with a shuffle of kicked-up paper. A bit of gravelly laughter floats up from below. Of course it’s amused. We [the imprisoned and the bored] get our entertainment where we can.

“You don’t understand—”

Mariah cuts us off. “Yes I do. You think I need to set up a distraction? Fine. That makes sense. You want me to do that but just giving you what you want most while doing nothing for me in return? That’s going to fly worse than the Emu-lator did back in the 1981 Robo Battle Royale.”

We’re about to argue, or at least inquire about the flight path of the Emu-lator when another voice joins the conversation.

Mpmpphph…not listen…agenda….mmmph….Little Voice…

Right. The Paper Shredder. We tune more of our ears to focus in on it until those mumbles turn into something vaguely comprehensible. Mariah ignores it as a matter of course. She’s so used to dismissing the Paper Shredder’s mumbles as unimportant that she can't connect its ramblings to her own situation.

“Demons…own agenda…themselves first.”

Well, yes, demons do look out for themselves first. What a demon needs—or wants—for themselves will always come before the bigger picture. More than the abstract concepts of Good and Evil as humans might understand it, it’s the focus on collectivism versus individualism that separates Angels from Demons. Mariah cares about holding on to us. To her, there’s no sense of fitting into a larger design, where threads of individual actions weave together to make up the Symphony. Or maybe knits together, one infinite thread in an infinite variety of stitches to make a whole, one loop of yarn at a time, leading to the next.

“Security access…here…manual…alarm…”

We have an idea, one that Mariah can’t easily say no to. One loop, leading to the next. One opportunity that leads to another. And so on down the line. It’ll be a gamble, but maybe…our objective can still happen. Maybe we can leave here and feel like we haven’t failed.

(Could we do more? Shouldn’t we be able to do more?)

“Your Heart is in this room now, isn’t it?” we ask, our voice barely rising above the din of the scrap paper.

Mariah’s voice is just as soft with her answer. “Yes.”

“If you were to break it, it would be broken in here, right?”

“Yes…” She trails off, and we think she anticipates what we’re about to suggest. We can sense the tension in the room as her perspective shifts. The body at her feet is seen now as a person—or perhaps as a natural force—rather than a piece of living office equipment.

“What’s in here that a Calabite could damage if it were actively trying? Would it be enough to be distracting?”

There’s a sharp intake of breath—from the Punisher, not the Freak. Mariah has been a Vapulan all her life, and she understands the taboo against Calabim in Tartarus more than we ever could. (If the Calabite entropy aura is potent enough to disqualify an entire Band from service, then why doesn’t Vapula just create an attunement to turn it off?) “It might be enough.”

“Would it be difficult?”

Mariah paces across the room. “Not very difficult, so long as we don’t need to run right when Tizzy’s playing with it. So you think I should let a demon go? Do you think he deserves it?”

‘Deserve’ is one of those concepts we can barely wrap a head around. The concept of everyone getting what they deserve seems nice in theory—good things should happen to good people and vice-versa—but in practice good and bad things happen pretty much indiscriminately and as often as not, we [people in general] assume bad things happen to others because they’re, well, bad. But that’s not true, is it? We didn’t deserve our capture. None of the (probably outcast) angels here deserve their most likely ending. The Paper Shredder—the Ofanite it used to be, at least—didn’t deserve the circumstances that led to its Fall. Even Fallen, it might not even have enough freedom of action to fully deserve Hell yet. Maybe Mariah here didn’t deserve the twists—unfortunate or otherwise—that left her at the edge of a decision most demons never give a serious thought to making.

“Yes,” we say, because that’s how all of our internal debates balance out. “You have an opportunity to escape. Why not give someone else the same chance and let that be the distraction you need to set up anyway?”

Mariah turns on the vacuum and starts cleaning up all the paper. That’s our cue to shut up and let her think.

“Fine. I’ll free the Destroyer,” she says once she switches the machine off. “Might as well, since I’ll have to be in here anyway. It’ll keep Tizzy distracted at least. Is that good enough for you?”

Inside our crystal, a chorus of voices bubbles up and chants on repeat: One chance. One opportunity. One chance. One opportunity. As though advocating for the release of a currently-contained demon will somehow open the way for more good options open than bad.

Our answer is as much for ourself as it is for Mariah. “It’ll have to be, won’t it?”

Chapter 30: Meanwhile, Mariah gets what she needs.

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.

Chapter 31: Raye provides limited help.

Chapter Text

Mariah gets to the other side of the stairwell door, and we try to process what just happened in the past few minutes.

The bad news: The Lilim now has a Geas-hook on Mariah. Presumably for that bit of ‘tell the bullies to let Mariah go’ back there in the break room, and we really can’t blame Mariah for her failure to avoid that one. Not when she could have gotten hooked for worse.

(Or at least, worse for us.)

The good news: Said Lilim has been rendered temporarily unable to invoke that hook. So long as the next few minutes go as planned, Mariah (and we) will be gone before she can try again.

The better news: Thanks to some trick Mariah did with her Resonance, said Lilim also appears to be temporarily paralyzed, which gives us a little bit of leeway in how ‘few’ the next few minutes need to be.

Back to the bad news: We’re pretty sure Mariah’s Essence is completely used up, and most of our own stockpiled Essence is gone as well. And Mariah…seems to be in the middle of an unidentifiable meltdown. We’ve seen a whole range of them brought about by her Bandmates. We know them intimately: Fits of rage. Wails of grief. Cringes of embarrassment. Wild swings between contrasting emotions. This is none of those. There’s almost no reaction to her at all. And there should be.

Everything about this situation screams urgency. Mariah should be racing up this flight of stairs, on to the secured floor, and towards the closet that holds the Paper Shredder. She needs to be out of here (this facility, Tartarus, Hell) now. Too much could go wrong to risk waiting. The Lilim could snap out of her stupor at any second and resume the chase. Backup could arrive to stall Mariah. The Damp Mop Djinn might decide to start playing with the Paper Shredder again. And yet Mariah takes this climb excruciatingly slowly. We’ve seen her walk to the cafeteria with more spunk than this.

Something very, very fucked must have happened to her head.

We hum and hope Mariah fills in the question.

Mariah’s voice remains without its usual affect. “Bandmate resonance. Maybe so I wouldn’t think fighting the Geas mattered. Or just because Zarielle knew I’d be a safe target to experiment with.”

(What? Hold up! Bandmate? Mariah actually used the term ‘Bandmate’?)

(What the fuck sort of emotion did Mariah get hit with to violate one of the core Habbalite principles?)

Mariah comes to a complete stop. Her shoulder hits the door with a soft thud. “Is this how Elohim feel all the time?”

“Feel what?”

Another voice chimes in: “We should keep moving.”

(Look at us getting down to business and providing emotional support. Multi-tasking all around.)

“Empty. Absent. Like there’s no ‘me’ in here at all. Or any divine whims. Just stimuli and corresponding reactions.”

The stimuli is a hostile working environment that is about to get even more hostile. The appropriate corresponding reaction is for Mariah to keep moving. Get to the room with the Paper Shredder. Do what she needs to do. But she’s not going to move until we can come up with a motivational answer, which we don’t have on hand. (Any of them.)

We think back to our time as a reliever, and we try to recall how our Elohim siblings had described their experiences to their incessantly nosy baby sister. It’s our non-Destiny sibling we take our answer from now. “I don’t think so. They have a ‘self’ as much as anyone else does; they’re just situated a bit differently in relation to it. One I know described its nature as seeing each action or emotion as a stitch in a larger tapestry, and understanding that even as it had threads too, it couldn’t let the inclinations of any single thread disrupt the harmony of the overall image.”

Mariah wastes precious seconds in still contemplation. “Habbalah really are demons, aren’t we?”

The continuing lack of affect unnerves us. A violent emotion now might be equally inconvenient, maybe even more so than her current numbness, but at least we could make sense of it in context. Maybe we could even hasten the emotional breakdown along; even red-hot rage calms down eventually after all, but how do we help Mariah push through a breakdown for an emotion that isn’t actually there?

(How long will this Resonance-trip last, anyway?)

(Too long to wait it out. We just have to pull through.)

“Yes. Habbalah are demons. Let’s get going.”

Way too slowly, Mariah shoves open the door and begins to move again.

—

At the molassal pace Mariah insists on moving at, we [she, specifically] don’t have time to stop in the old workroom. Guess what she does anyway?

“What are we here for?”

Mariah takes her time answering—enough time for her to set her box down, open a cabinet and dig around. “Supplies. Diversion. If you have any Essence left, pass it over.”

We pass our last two Essence over to her without protest.

She walks over to the radio and fiddles with the dial. The Techsynth station blasts out at what we might hope would be full-volume before Mariah turns it up further. She picks up the box again and walks out of the workroom at the exact same pace she walked in. The door slams shut behind her. Thumps and grinds from the current song follow us out virtually unmuffled.

“If she hears the radio, the Lilim will waste her time checking there first.”

We make a dubious noise—let’s not give ourself away at the last minute—and Mariah trudges towards the Damp Mop Djinn’s office. We take advantage of Mariah’s slowness to pause and listen for signs of commotion. Yesterday, we could hear all kinds of interesting and terrible noises coming through the other side of the door. Today, everything remains at a neutral level of near-silence. We make an affirmative hum.

Mariah bends down on something and pushes the office door open with her body. Nothing greets us except for the scratch of a sharp pen on paper and faint noises from a radio kept at the exact right volume to give the impression of conversation without letting the voices resolve to anything parse-able for anyone other than the Djinn herself. To our focused hearing, it sounds like a quiz show.

(Where is the oldest working waterwheel in Tartarus located? Hell if we have any more of an idea than the poor damned soul being asked this question.)

We turn our ears away from the radio. There’s no reason to pay attention to Hellside media now.

“Your ‘music’ is loud.” The Damp Mop Djinn uses audible scare quotes around the word music.

(From Mariah’s current location, the lingering bass line from her radio about equals the murmurs from the Djinn’s.)

“Sorry, ma’am.” We dip and sway with Mariah’s body as she tries to grab what she needs while keeping hold on the decoy box. “Just using the Paper Shredder for a bit. Audit season and all.”

The Damp Mop Djinn croaks out an audible shrug. Mariah might lack affect right now—and doing a mediocre job of acting as a result—but this Stalker refuses to be out-apathied by a mere Habbalite, nor will she be continuing this conversation. Whatever has her attention must be more interesting than her struggling assistant.

(We asked Mariah about it once, and the answer she gave back then was “Something really stupid.”)

At last, Mariah manages to successfully jingle the key and the control bracelet for the Will Shackles off their respective hooks. The Djinn has gone back to scratching her pen, and all Mariah has to do is maneuver herself and her awkward box of documents into this supply closet and act like some old financial statements are all that will disappear in the next few moments.

—

Mariah takes a deep and voluntary breath once the door latches shut behind us. We don’t blame her. She’s about to obliterate the one item that directly connects her soul to her Prince and to Hell, and once that’s done, there’s no going back. Even through deadened emotional responses, this is still a moment to make anyone nervous.

(Could we ever voluntarily damage our Heart?)

(Let’s not think about that.)

It’s safe in here, in a dangerous way. The Damp Mop Djinn will stall any unauthorized pursuit. We should speak up now. This is our last chance to implore Mariah do something to free the imprisoned angels—our Choirmates, the Ofanim, anyone who might have come in since our tour—before we leave them behind for good.

(Shouldn’t that be for evil?)

(For as permanently as anything gets.)

Yes we’ve asked before, to no avail, but her previous objections have always come from an emotional place. Maybe with her resonance-induced mindset, she’ll be more receptive.

“About our Choirmates…” We begin and trail off.

“What about them?” Mariah’s voice is without malice, just completely dead in a way that’s worse than a passionate refusal. This isn’t our punishment for denying Mariah her desire; this is her simply not seeing any point to their rescue.

“Can’t we do anything to help them?”

Mariah sets down the box she carries and snaps the control bracelet to her wrist. “If you’re that committed to saving them, I can leave you here to figure it out.”

None of us speak up. Some of us want to, but even they don’t.

(It can’t be wrong to want to survive. Can it?)

“Right. That’s what I thought.”

Mariah bends over, picks up the box she carried in, and turns her attention to the Paper Shredder. She gives a simple command. “Destroy this.” The decoy box falls apart mostly silently. We hear the usual soft tearing of paper and the resulting flutters as the scraps drift through and fall under the spell of gravity. This is the easy part.

All that’s left is the important bit.

Mariah drags another box out from behind various other stacks of objects that waver and clank as she looks to free it. There’s no audible sign of the box’s contents—no resonant hum or emanating static but we know what it holds. Mariah knows what it holds. Her slow pace turns truly solemn. Her voice wavers reverently as she gives her next command to the Paper Shredder. “And destroy this.”

(Hearts are durable. We wonder if the Paper Shredder can even—)

Crystal shatters with a sound like a deep screech that hits straight into our own Heart. A sympathetic reverberation goes through this force catcher, like this very stone might buckle at the shock-wave.

(Never mind.)

Around us Mariah inhales another sharp breath. The weight of what she just did must be settling around her even in this state. Or perhaps it’s only the new Discord making its way into her soul. Mariah may still be a Habbalite, but she’s no longer ‘of Technology’. Oblivious Djinn or not, there’s no going back to the life she had even thirty-seconds ago. No more stealth. No more hiding in plain sight. The only way open to her now is her vessel and the corporeal, and she better hope the alarm that prevents anyone from plane-jumping doesn’t trigger before she can get there.

She’s almost done here. The only thing she has left to do is set up the next step in this chain-reaction we [Mariah and I] agreed to.

If she deigns it worth doing in her current state. We have our doubts.

But we don’t feel Mariah’s pull towards the corporeal just yet.

Mariah takes out the supplies she gathered for this moment—the counter agent to whatever sedative keeps this Destroyer mostly placid and incoherent and the syringe and needle used to administer it. She prepares the dose like a once-skilled hand out of practice. She injects it.

Then, the Essence we loaned her—gave her, we don’t expect repayment—flows out into the Symphony.

“You are Angry about your situation. You want to destroy this whole facility.” Mariah speaks the intended effect out loud, as though the Will Shackle can solidify what her Resonance has trouble doing on its own. We don’t know how effective it’ll be, but then we don’t think the Calabite on the floor needs any encouragement to feel angry at its situation.

Mariah takes two large steps back and gives the Paper Shredder one final command.

“Remove the Will Shackle.”

A latch squeaks rustily as it falls open for the first time in what must be years. The metal ring thuds dully against a bed of paper scraps and crystalline shards.

Mariah doesn’t linger. Her work here is done. One diversion set into motion. One opportunity offered for one opportunity received. That’s all we were promised, and all we could hope for in the end. What happens down here next is out of our multitudinous hands.

We spare a thought for those left behind.

(For all the good that does them.)

And then we’re gone.

Chapter 32: Meanwhile, the paper shredder goes offline.

Chapter Text

How long has he been sprawled here in this windowless box in a world he never wanted to visit? Time has become meaningless, one hour, day, year the same as the next. His thoughts trip over themselves when he tries to keep track of anything. What becomes clear slides back into the fog the moment he stops looking directly at it. If the drugs couldn’t keep him dull, the boredom would.

He knows there’s a Djinn, an unholy hybrid of toad and owl that comes in and peers at him and laughs at his attempts to swipe at her. He knows there’s a Habbalite, a scrawny and mutilated human-shaped thing and no threat at all who nervously steps around his sprawled form like he’s an unpleasant puddle. He knows other demons occasionally walk in and tell him to break things. He shouldn’t be able to, can’t muster up the focus when it’s only his own desire against what keeps him down, but when they tell him to he can. Hell is nothing if not unfair.

He shouldn’t be breaking things at all. He should be running. He remembers running. They caught him. No. They stole him while he was elsewhere and dragged him down here. He tripped. They threw him in this closet to destroy things at their bidding. Sometimes, when what he’s destroyed piles up and threatens to bury him, that scrawny Habbalite vacuums up what everyone else leaves behind. He stays, and the cycle repeats.

His old life exists only in fragments. His former name is gone; mostly-forgotten friends are just faint strings of notes in a beautiful language that increasingly slides away from his tongue. All his imagination conjures is a glimpse of a lady in a tower and faded gray sands.

He barely remembers the past few minutes except that he tries. He tries, and the sedatives are finally wearing off.

His fingers spread out against the floor. That’s wrong. He shouldn’t have fingers on this plane the way he shouldn’t break things, but he does. He feels his way about scraps of paper, flakes of plastic, and shards of what feel like glass but aren’t. They came from a demon’s Heart. A Heart he had somehow shattered. He sees the image of that scrawny Punisher before him, pushing a box like any other into his hands. “Destroy this,” she had commanded, and he did. It hadn’t been difficult because he hadn’t realized.

And then she left. But not without leaving him a few presents.

Not the Anger; that Punisher could barely resonate tears out of a funeral, but then, he doesn’t need a Habbalite’s resonance to become Angry. He does that on his own just fine. That Will Shackle now lying on the ground and the time away from the sedatives though, those change everything. For the first time in what seems like an eternity he feels awake. Awake and fully aware of his surroundings. Fully aware of what must have been done to him to bring him to this state.

He thinks of the others who had been held with him before he stopped. The ones who had held out until…until they had reached the end of their useful life and the ones who didn’t and were taken somewhere else to be disposed of. The ones from other Choirs who were thrown in prisons constructed especially for them. He thinks of the voice that recently accompanied that Punisher. Who had pushed her to do more. Help more.

But the Punisher was selfish. Whatever her delusions might tell her about being an angel, that one was always going to serve herself first. That’s what demons did. The voice should have known that.

He stumbles and staggers his way to a standing position. His legs wobble. Is this is first time standing in this kind of celestial body? It might be. He doesn’t remember otherwise. His whole body turns as he looks around and takes in what exists in here besides him and the garbage they make him create.

He doesn’t have much time. The Djinn will notice soon that he is no longer sedated, or she will check in on him anyway. He can’t move very far either, not without her noticing, but this room holds plenty of things—fragile, breakable arrangements of molecules with not that much holding them together. He focuses on the discarded shackle and when that doesn’t crack under his resonance, he redirects it towards the shelves with the collars and the manacles. The stun guns and the prods. The cabinet where the sedatives are stored.

Shackle aside, nothing in here is him-proof.

It feels amazing. It feels terrible. He wants to stay here and tear this whole place down to the depths of the Lower Hells and then drag the rest of Tartarus with it. He knows it’s futile. They’ll destroy him if he does, but he could cause collateral damage and that tiny taste of revenge before his Forces get torn apart would be so, so sweet. He wants to run and plead for forgiveness and become again what he once had been. He wants to hide and be left alone, no one knowing what he is or where he’s been.

Except for that Djinn. She’ll always know. She’s attuned. She wouldn’t have bothered keeping him otherwise.

He almost wants to give up and slump against the wall and stop his struggle against the entropy that threatens to take him down further. The ending is inevitable. He is a Calabite in Tartarus no longer sufficiently bound by shackles and drugs. The Djinn won’t risk this happening again. That’s fine. What final death could be worse than this monotonous and never-ending twilight he’s been subjected to? Dying at least ends.

But no. Someone gave him this opportunity, pressed it into his hands like the evidence of a failed experiment, but no one has commanded him yet to destroy it. No one has told him yet to sit down and let what he holds fall apart around him like the shards of that Punisher’s broken Heart. And isn’t that a surprise? That she out of all the demons here would have the nerve to pick up and run. That she would remove his shackles on the way out?

He can’t tear this whole place to the ground and get away clean, but this room still has so many more things in it left to destroy, and he can make them regret bringing him here. His two eyes focus on an inconspicuous gray-green box. That seems important. Half-coherent images dance through his mind: Demons coming here in a panic every so often, calling out to flip the master switch, shouting for something called ‘lockdown’. Everyone in place. Every door and cage locked. That box holds the mechanism. Surely, it could be used the other way. He opens the cover of the box. Too many switches, it almost confounds him. But, then, he only needs to understand enough to wreck shit.

He won’t linger and risk getting caught. He is a demon too and so will choose to save himself in this moment. But that Habbalite, driven on by that little voice, had done him this small favor when she could have found a safer way to run. And that voice had reached out, and spoken up for him. Had spoken to him and listened to his replies in a way that no one else in Hell had before. If that voice could witness this, it would want him to pass that favor on. So be it.

He looks closer at the panel with his limited eyes. On one side are symbols of a closed padlock. On the other, an open one. It’s not too difficult to figure out what they could mean in context. A sweep of his unfamiliar hand and forearm move all the switches over to the open side, and then it only takes one concentrated shot of his Resonance to destroy the box altogether. There. One small kindness given. One small act of revenge taken.

He’s done here. It’s time to figure out where to go next.

Indistinct arguments come through the other side of the door. That and the Djinn’s thumps. Whatever commotion he’s caused or the Habbalite caused is making itself known to others by now. He hopes at least, that those in the cells he unlocked can do something with their own opportunities. But that’s not his problem. The Djinn is coming towards him, and if he is to escape he needs to do it now. He turns away from any other thoughts of this cursed place and reaches out to the world beyond Hell. A vessel awaits him there and so too does his chance to run.

Chapter 33: Raye appreciates the little things.

Chapter Text

Returning to the Corporeal feels…not quite like coming home, but like encountering a familiar road after spending years at the bottom of a deep sea: A little less pressure around us, and a little more faith we’ll be home soon. Sure, we’ll likely have incoming pursuit sooner rather than later, and there’s still a Habbalite in the middle of a spiritual breakdown holding on to our chain. But still, we [I, and also Mariah, but not anyone else] are in a better place than we were even five seconds ago.

(Getting anyone else out had always been a small chance. Some of us already knew that; most of us just didn’t want to believe, and none of us wanted to give up until we had to.)

(We had to.)

(We are out of Tartarus!)

(So-fucking-long and goodbye. We won’t be back.)

Beyond the initial decompression effect of finally arriving on the corporeal plane after so long in Hell, our actual sensory input hasn’t changed. We still don’t have our sight, touch, temperature, taste, anything like that back, but our hearing remains as keen as ever—keener, in fact, than it was before we left. There’s a new subtlety to silence we never noticed before, the tenor of which is as much a giveaway that our location has changed as our innate sense of Earth vs. Hell. This silence is no longer air wooshing through ventilation ducts, never-idle machinery, and the skittering of gremlin claws. Now we hear the rattle of the wind going through dried leaves and the softer skitters of less malevolent creatures.

(Actual leaves! Plants! Nature!)

And then a train whistle in the distance cuts through this silence. But that’s not a Tartaran noise—at least it’s not a noise of the Tartarus we just left a minute ago—just a reminder that wherever Mariah has popped out of Hell isn’t entirely devoid of humans.

(There’s a world outside, and it’s not Hell!)

Mariah’s steps crunching over leaves (Autumn? Or just leftovers from an autumn past?) become a foreground noise we focus a mind or two on. Her motion here on the corporeal plane has a confidence it lacked back in Hell. That weighted-down slowness from the Resonance hasn’t worn off yet, but she carries burden differently.

We should say something.

Mariah doesn’t seem interested in initiating conversation, and we’re not sure how to start one up ourself. Everything we could talk about now seems either too big or too small for the moment. (Are those individual insects we hear going about their business? Is that an actual spider we hear spinning its web?)

“Where are we?” we ask at last. (In English! A Corporeal language! Imperfect, but beautiful! Not so unforgiving of imprecision!)

That gets Mariah’s attention. “Central United States, or close enough. Southern Illinois, near Missouri if that means anything to you.” Her voice sounds as blank as our internal voices are not. “Some bit of woods just outside a town. Well, for some definition of ‘town’.”

(Woods! Towns!)

So we’ve landed a little outside our normal range, but it not so far away that our knowledge stops being useful. We remember visiting a Wordmate in the area back in the 30s (1930s—as if we've spent enough time on Earth ourselves to differentiate centuries) to help with paperwork. We’re well within range of that Lighting Tether we plan on suggesting to Mariah. There might be closer Angelic Tethers, but will they be suitable for Mariah and have selection of wildlife to sink into once we’re out? Probably not. She’s shown zero interest in either flora or fauna thus far. “That’s not too bad. We should get going before people start catching up to you.”

(Us, perhaps?)

Mariah stops moving and lowers herself down. We feel her lift and pull us up—out of a pocket most likely, given our relative positions. Then she settles us down nearer to where she used to carry us back in Hell. (Perhaps 20 minutes ago.) “Not yet.”

“Aren’t you concerned about hunters.”

“Sure. Someone might have followed me here, but if so, they’d have shown themselves by now. If not, any Renegade hunters will have to go through a Tether. And even assuming they have a way of tracking me, it’ll still take them a while to get here.” We have to listen closer to get the audio cues we’re used to. Mariah’s nails are shorter here than they were back in Hell, and the surface she taps against is softer, but those are thoughtful taps. “So why run without a direction in mind.”

(A car zips down a road a fair distance from us.)

“You need a plan, then?”

“What I need is to start feeling things again before I make any big decisions.” A pause. “Any more of them. Going Renegade is already plenty big. At least, it’s big enough that I can’t go back.”

“No.” We agree, and then dare to ask, “Do you regret it already?”

Mariah stays still and silent, the beat of her vessel’s heart (Heart beats! Physical bodies!) and the motion of her chest as she breathes our only cues to her presence. “That’s the problem. I don’t feel anything about it yet. Maybe I will regret it. Or maybe I won’t.”

We think we follow along with Mariah’s thought process. “And you don’t want to do anything else until you can tell the difference?”

Dry leaves stir and scatter about beneath us. “No. Because that won’t matter. Even if I regret what I did, I can’t undo the action. That Heart isn’t ever going to un-break. It’s more that I don’t want to do anything right now. Do you know what the resonance did to me? To my mind.”

We think about the times when Mariah has resonated us, which is way too often when we consider the effort it takes her. “Your mind tries to attach cause to an emotion as a way of coping with it. If the emotion makes sense, it’s slightly easier to manage.”

“Right.” She goes silent, just the slight sound of air in her lungs meshing with the light rustle of the wind. (This isn’t Hell! Air moves here!) “And the cause of this was…realizing how much of what I cared about was based on a delusion. My own divinity. My quest to overcome my setback. The thought that you might—” Mariah cuts herself off before we have to talk about what none of us wants to discuss right now. Her body tilts back, like she’s leaning against something. Perhaps a tree? “Maybe Djinn have the right of it. Nothing matters, so fixate on whatever's a little less boring than everything else.”

(She’s trying to change the subject.)

We decide to give Mariah the graceful way out. “Did you ever get that choice? Of what Band to become?”

“No. I was made in this form. And even If I weren’t, Habbalah and Djinn fledge from different kinds of demonlings.” She snorts in something that could almost be—but is too muted for—amusement. “Of course. Demonlings. It really should have been obvious. What about you? Did you choose to become a Kyriotate? Or were you made that way.”

We think about ourself as a reliever, back when we were as singular as most people believe themselves to be. “Technically, I chose. But I’d known I was going to fledge this way ever since I was the size of a human child. The moment I learned what a Kyriotate was, I fell completely in love with the concept. There wasn’t anything else for me to be.”

There’s a slight nudge at the crystal. We move. Mariah doesn’t. Therefore, she’s gesturing at us. “I’ve always found Kyriotates fascinating. What about the Choir attracted you to it?”

We let a few minds think about the answer, some of them brightening to talk about what we love, and others dimming because so much of it remains out of our reach. “The everything-ness of it, I guess. Little me never wanted to choose just one thing to see or do or learn at a time, and so the idea of existing in multiple places at once, and getting all these different perspectives, and never being stuck in a single form sounded perfect.”

(Not said directly: We love everything these past months—years?—haven’t been.)

Mariah snorts again. “And was it as good as you thought it would be? When you finally fledged?”

“Better, mostly. I had heard what it was like from other Kyriotates before I fledged of course, but it didn’t compare to experiencing it myself, both in Heaven and on Earth.” Our life as a Kyriotate had been everything Reliever-us had wanted right up until that moment we chose the wrong person to help and ended up in this sticky, rock-candy trap. “What about you? What would have you chosen if you could have fledged as any other Band? A Djinn?”

“No. Probably not…I don’t know…” Mariah trails off. “I couldn’t live with this lack of emotion all the time. It’s bad enough right now. I’m not sure what Band I would have chosen. I’ve never seen myself as enough of a demon before to think about other Bands as things I might have become instead. I still don’t quite believe I am one now.”

We pivot. “So, what Choir would you have chosen, then? If you could have picked one?”

Mariah takes her time to think about this one, and we tune our ears to the outside world. An owl calls out in the distance. Ah. This background silence is nighttime. (Circadian rhythms!) “I don’t know. Maybe Malakite.”

We’re neither surprised nor encouraged. We imagine many completely demonic Habbies would see the appeal of being a Malakite. A Choir created after the Fall and divinely ordained by God to smite the unworthy? That’s how most of the Punishers we’ve observed already see themselves. “Why a Malakite?”

Mariah’s breath rises and falls softly beneath us. Her mind is even more opaque to us than usual. “It seems solid,” she says at last, “Seeing what people have done and figuring out what they deserve from that. Setting oaths based on a personal code of honor. And since Malakim don’t become anything else, there’s no ambiguity about what side is what.”

Huh. So not smiting? At least not as a primary draw. “You want the clarity, then?”

“Maybe that’s the word for it. But a better clarity than this one.” Mariah goes quiet, and we listen to the sounds of her body—her vessel, which does not function exactly as a human body does but still has more incidental noises to make than a celestial one.

“How much longer is the resonance effect going to last?”

Mariah shifts her arms slightly. “Translating duration between planes is unreliable. Not too much longer. Probably before sunrise.”

And it isn’t. We feel Mariah’s resonance trip finally wearing off in the way that incidental motion returns to her body. Fingertips start to fidget. A leg slides forward on the leaf litter. Her vessel’s resting heart rate beats a little faster. We brace ourself for Mariah’s next actions. A lot has happened these past few hours, and we can’t count on her taking any of it well. Her reaction could be anything from complete denial of what happened to exacting punishment for our role in it.

But neither of those happen, at least not yet. She just asks a question. “Do you want to know why I chose you? The real reason, not just the divine whim?” Emotional rhythm has started coming back into Mariah’s voice, and we realize that her lower speaking pitch isn’t just the lack of expressiveness brought on by the Emptiness but an anatomical change from her previous vessel.

We’re curious. The answer thus far has always been some variation on divine whim without further explanation. The hint that there’s a real answer, and that Mariah is willing to give it to us intrigues us. “Sure.”

“I liked your catcher. Most of the ones I carry come in various quartzes: clear, rose, smoky, occasionally an amethyst or two, but yours was actually a different mineral—all pink and green in gradation. The dealer called it watermelon tourmaline. It was a beautiful stone. Almost too pretty to use. But I did, and it brought me you.”

“Really? The rock was pretty? That’s all it took?”

(Reminder, we don’t actually understand this Habbie.)

(Pretty rocks! Which we will see again someday!)

“Well, there were practical reasons too. You weren't Outcast like most of the ones I brought in. You acted friendly towards me, even though you were afraid and uncertain, so it seemed plausible that you could cooperate, given sufficient motivation.”

“Pragmatism?”

Mariah sighs. Breathing isn’t optional on the corporeal, whether that breath filters through a host or a vessel. “In a short-sighted sense, maybe. I thought those signs meant I could master you and gain back what my Discord had lost me. I should have known.”

“Should have known what?”

“That your friendliness wasn’t a sign of complacency. That it was your opening to try and change me once I let my guard down. That I was vulnerable to change in the first place.”

(Well, she makes us sounds a lot more devious than we really were. There wasn’t any master plan. We just couldn’t stand being helpless.)

(Plus, when hosts need to be protected, friendliness is a much better default starting point than hostility.)

Mariah continues over our internal discussion. “If it weren’t for you, I’d still be in Hell, safe in my divinity with a job to do and no reason not to do it.”

“What would you have done differently? If you had known?” A squirrel runs across the leaf litter and up a tree trunk behind us. (Squirrels! Little paws!)

A finger taps down on a solid surface below us. “I don’t know. It might not have made a difference at all. I wanted what I wanted, and I might have thought myself invulnerable to the threat that came with you. Or maybe I would have thought twice and just handed you over to Tizzy like I should have.”

We shudder.

“Or maybe I chose you, with my divine whim knowing deep down something like this would have to happen eventually. Do something risky long enough, and something will eventually blow it up. If not the Lilim’s blackmail, then something else. And my life as a hunter of heaven-angels was always going to be short.” She sighs. “All said, I lasted a good long time. More than a decade and a half. Most of Tizzy’s assistants are lucky to survive their first trip to the Corporeal. She doesn’t even bother training them until then.”

“She doesn’t sound like a good person to be stuck working for.”

“She’s not.” Mariah agrees. “Whatever else comes from breaking my Heart, I’m glad to be away from her. From all of them, really.”

That’s encouraging, a sign that no matter when or how we leave Mariah, she’s better off in at least one way. We don’t hold the same Dissonance-bound (that note is still there) obligations towards her as we might for an actual host, but not caring about what happens to her because of that technicality is not a habit we want to get into.

“So, what’s next?” we ask. Mariah has as many options as we could give her: find another Prince, remain a Renegade, Redeem. Of course, we have our preferences. (Let’s get her to an angelic tether!) But she’s the one with a functional body, and we’re the ones trapped in a crystal.

Mariah stands up, sudden upward motion that comes from her core. Thick fabric or leather slides against a thinner fabric. Velcro unfastens. (A wallet? Out of a pocket?) Fingers rustle to flip through paper. (Counting money?) “It’s still fairly early for humans. But my immediate plan is to walk into town, get something resembling breakfast, and then use most of what’s left of the cash to buy an old car from a guy I know.”

“And in the longer term?”

Mariah picks a direction and starts walking through the woodland. Each step is marked by the crinkling of leaf-litter and the occasional twig-snap. “I can’t go back to my Archangel, can I? Between stealing my Heart to break it and that Lilim’s hook in me, that’s a permanent decision.”

(Archangel? Oh great, the delusion must be back.)

“Nothing is truly permanent. Except death, maybe.” The beautiful truth of our existence, though we think most people feel differently, in that there are specific things they would like to preserve forever. “But in the immediate sense that you can’t go back to Vapula tomorrow and pick up your old job like nothing ever happened, I suppose that counts as permanent enough. So, what about other Princes?”

“There aren’t any other important Habbalite Princes in Hell, and I’ve never wanted to serve a demon.”

“So it’s either Renegade or Redemption for you?”

“Pretty much. Unless you have a third choice you want to offer up.”

“Not particularly.” There are still parts of us marveling at every chirp and rustle. The leaves are autumn-dry right now, and whatever soft breeze is coming through them is shaking out a staccato rhythm. (Wind! Leaves! Seasons!) “I’m already biased towards the one decision.”

“You would be. Heaven-angels usually are.” Her tone is not as sharp as the words might imply. We wonder if that’s an after effect of the resonance trip or a long-term change in her perspective. “But then, you’re not the one with anything to lose from that decision, are you?”

(No. We’ve already lost from this all we’re going to lose.)

(We hope.)

“We think you’ll make it through the risky part,” we say, and deliberately choose the plural. This is a whole chorus of concurrence, not one voice speaking out the best answer amongst many. “And we think you’ll be happier as an Elohite.”

“Assuming they even let me try. They could just smite me on sight.”

“There’s a Lightning tether less than a day’s drive from here,” we say, “They’re practical, and a new angel is better than a smited—smoted—”

“Smitten.” Mariah interrupts, voice impatient.

“—than a smitten demon,” we finish. “I’ll vouch for you. Plus, you have information about ongoing Tech operations. They’ll give you a chance.”

“Assuming I even want it.” Mariah shuts down the conversation. She doesn’t even correct our use of ‘demon’ in reference to her.

After a bit, we [I] realize that dawn has officially arrived. (Sunrise! Essence! New Day! Not Hell!)

(Eight dawns until we can make an escape attempt!)

“Sun’s up,” we say.

Mariah’s footsteps turn to a bit of a petulant stomp. We’ve just received our daily Essence (Our first daily Essence! In however long!) while Mariah has to wait for sunset as demons do. The Habbalite delusion might be in effect again, but Mariah’s version of it seems more fragile now than it was before. The resonance effect goes away, but the memories of what happened under it don’t fade so fast.

“Sun’s up,” Mariah echoes. She stops for a second and turns her body—towards or away from the eastern horizon, we can’t tell, but surely, somehow, in relation to it nonetheless.

—

Humans are very noisy creatures, whether they want to think so or not, and even sleepy little towns—like Mariah assures us this one is—will drown out the the surrounding world with its human noises. It’s not that animal noises disappear completely (Three—no four—crows caw around us.) but that the noises of human activities foreground themselves in a way that those of most other corporeal critters don’t.

Vehicles on Earth sound much like their celestial cousins in Tartarus. There’s perhaps not so much active hostility within the heart of the average corporeal motor, nor do the few drivers who pass by us seem to take Mariah’s pedestrian status as a personal challenge.

“I wouldn’t have taken you as someone prefers rural areas,” we say, as we marvel at the increasingly human sounds around Mariah. A few pairs of shoes walk along the pavement, one of them particularly squeaky. Cars go by. Rhythmic creaks from what might be a poorly maintained porch swing. There are a few stray “Good Mornings!” spoken to Mariah as she navigates that she barely acknowledges.

(No Taps! No Signals! No worrying about being caught by a stray demonling! We can just speak! In English!)

“I don’t really. Small towns like these are just better to hunt in.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Smaller towns mean fewer celestials. Which means the Outcasts who do show up tend to be more isolated. Less chance they have a support network to run to or that other parties might interfere. And rural celestials also tend to be less cautious with the disturbance than city-based ones are.”

It makes sense. Even as a solitary multitude, we still knew about half a dozen angels of Creation in the vicinity of Chicago, and they knew of us. Plus a handful of other celestials and Aware humans from either side that we could track based on their disturbance. Oh, and a number of known Tethers in the area. While we didn’t exactly know of any long-term Outcasts or Renegades in our old stomping grounds, that didn’t mean they weren’t there. It just meant they’d kept hidden well enough to avoid our notice.

It also occurs to us that Mariah probably knows as well as anyone how unaffiliated celestials get caught, and that might help her stay safely Renegade for as long as she wants.

(That’s not encouraging.)

(Oh! Hey! We recognize that song!)

(Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise…)

Mariah gives a disgusted noise. “Would you stop that? The humans around might notice! And if it’s not as deadly as Tizzy noticing, it’s still awkward.”

We clam up. This might be an improvement on Tartarus, but we still don’t have the freedom we need: To exist as ourselves. To move. To sing, even, without worrying about the dangers of an unexpected audience. To, in fact, have audiences again who might want to hear us.

(Mariah has never properly appreciated our singing.)

—

Like any other celestial, Mariah doesn’t actually need to eat breakfast (or at all), but she walks into a restaurant anyway and gets seated in a booth. (Cute little diners! Daily specials!) She makes polite sounding chit-chat with the waitress who comes by and orders a plate of biscuits and gravy and a small orange juice.

Mariah flicks through a newspaper while she waits. (Newspapers! Crinkly pages!) Or she does until she jerks and drops down dramatically.

Did she just suddenly hide under the table?

The rhythm of her heart beating beneath us has gone from a steady relaxed thump to a rapid pound-pound-pound. Her breathing has gone shallow and unregulated. We’ve felt this kind of reaction from her before, back in Hell, under the Resonance from her Bandmates but the only Punisher around is Mariah.

(That we know of.)

(If she’s not, and the other one knew enough to Resonate her, we [Mariah and I] have a very different, much larger problem to contend with.)

We keep our voice low, but we do with Mariah what we’ve done before on a different plane of existence. “Breathe in 2, 3, 4. Hold, 2, 3, 4. Out 2, 3, 4.” While we do that, the sound of a plate being set on the table above us tells me that Mariah’s breakfast has just arrived.

And then the reaction stills and Mariah climbs back up to the bench, and tries to go on like nothing happens. But we can hear feel the slight tremble in her hand, and the unsteady taps of the fork she picked up.

“What happened?” we ask.

“What do you think happened? It’s my new Discord.”

Of course. Heart breakage comes with Discord. Something here must have triggered whatever Mariah’s new one is. Fear, maybe? Or some kind of general Panic, which we’ve never heard of before but can’t actually rule out. Mariah’s had bad luck with rare Discords before.

“Which is…?”

“Annoying.”

The second time Mariah seizes up and goes under the table, we keep one of our minds in on Mariah and encouraging her to try the breathing exercises (Do they even help if the cause is clearly not mundane? We’re not sure, but it’s better to try something right?), but we also turn our ears outward to the environment. The diner isn’t super-crowded; there’s no sea of noise like there was in the cafeteria down in Tartarus, but it’s not completely deserted either. Nearest to us, two old men talk about their grandchildren. A bit further away and one person complains to another about their work schedule getting shifted around and plans for the weekend getting disrupted. A group across the diner bicker about an upcoming election. Music pipes in from a jukebox. We don’t recognize the song. It might be a newer one. Kitchen noises come in too. Eggs frying in a pan. Coffee brewing.

(New music! Breakfast foods!)

The attack ends, and we notice one noise has also stopped. We’re not surprised Mariah didn’t figure it out the first time. We might not have, except that we’re specifically listening for it.

“Damned random panic attacks,” Mariah mutters.

(Do we tell her?)

(It won’t make her any happier to know?)

(Or that we figured it out before she did.)

(She needs to know. Wherever she decides to go from here.)

“It’s not random,” we tell her. “It’s probably tied to the sound of the coffee—”

Hands slam down on the table, and we hear the slight pause in the restaurant activities as the sudden rattle of china, cutlery, and glassware cut through the conversations elsewhere.

“You’re always so helpful, aren’t you?” Mariah says with bitter sarcasm, once the normal diner noises have resumed. Her voice becomes more conversational. “I’ve dealt with worse before. I’ll deal with this too. Be strong. Endure. Overcome.”

But we notice that Mariah pays the check and gets out of there as soon as she can.

—

By the time Mariah procures a certified beater—nothing wrong with it that a roll of duct tape and a little bit of elbow grease won’t fix—from the guy she knows, she’s back on her balance, almost cheerful even. Maybe because—despite her unreliable Resonance and inconvenient Discords—she’s on the plane of existence where she’s stronger, smarter, and faster than most of the natives.

The car takes a little bit more than duct tape to get running—there’s a request to borrow the guys tools and a trip to a hardware store to pick up something he doesn’t have and several hours of repair reminiscent of her time in the workroom—but eventually the engine turns over with a deep-throated growl to make any street-legal Tartaran sedan proud.

(This isn’t Tartarus!)

“Still not great. But that and a few tanks of gas will get me where I need to go.”

We’ve spent these past hours (Radio announcers! Time measurements we understand!) silent and eavesdropping, but now we speak up. “You’ve chosen a destination, then? Where to?”

“Wait and see. Won’t that be a lovely surprise?”

(Considering her tone of voice, we’d probably debate the ‘lovely’ part if we knew.)

She can’t go back to Technology. But she’s a demon on the corporeal with no assigned task and no immediate pursuit on her tail. Her world is full of options.

All we can do right now is wait and see what she’s decided.

Chapter 34: Raye gets a clean break.

Chapter Text

We realize that Mariah is deliberately keeping us in the (metaphorical) dark when she turns off the radio right as the radio signal fuzzes out from the current station and starts giving hints to where we’re passing through.

Not even our singing gets her to turn the radio back on, and we dig through our memory for some of the most annoying songs (lower-case s) in our repertoire. But no matter what we try—monkeys on the bed, bottles of beer on the wall, men with long names beginning with ‘John Jacob’, rowboats merrily down the stream—Mariah drives on with grim silence.

(If only we knew of a song that truly never ended.)

(An impossibility. Nothing never ends.)

(A recursive song however…)

—

The car door echoes shut and cuts off the bit of gas-station noises coming in from the outside. The radio from a parked car playing songs from twenty years before our capture. Mariah unfolds a sheet of paper at least three—no four—times.

We still have no direct clues pointing to her destination. Mariah didn’t spend enough time in the gas station for us to pick up a town name from the radio, and no one else asked the clerk for directions in our overhearing. We do know that Mariah picked up a map—that sheet she unfolded—and that her finger now traces out a route that moves it away from her body.

(Away from us.)

Which means we can (and will) speculate on Mariah’s planned route despite lacking access to our visual sense. We assume the road map Mariah has acquired is the traditional kind for this region with north oriented at the top. We also assume—a touch more shakily—that Mariah isn’t so committed to keeping her decision a surprise that she would think to reorient the paper to throw off our listening. She might not even realize that it’s information to us.

At one point she turns the whole sheet over and pokes at it.

“Figures.” Mariah mutters.

“What figures?”

“Oh, just some route-planning annoyances.” Mariah folds the map folding back in on itself and being sets down to her right side. “Nothing you should concern yourself with.” She turns her attention away from us and begins the intricate ritual required to start her car: Taps and thumps, the key in the ignition and the click-shift of an indicator.

The engine finally turns over.

“It just turns out that everything has its price.”

(Is she talking about redemption or the tollway? Either could apply.)

—

We [Mariah, myself, the car] continue on the journey. Still no radio, just the sounds of the car running reluctantly. Traffic zips by us, and not just the drivers going the opposite way, but also cars switching lanes to pass. Either Mariah’s car doesn’t have a very high top-speed or she’s in no rush to reach her destination.

(We’d believe either one. Or both. No point in setting up a false dichotomy.)

We still sing to cover up the oppressive silence, though we’ve moved away from deliberately irritating songs to only incidentally annoying ones. If we can’t extra-irritate Mariah out of her silent treatment, we can at least avoid annoying ourself.

What would we even have to talk about?

Her feelings. Our feelings. Her plans for the future. Our plans for the future. We’re surprised Mariah hasn’t tried to wheedle any promises to stay out of us. Maybe she’s tempted and only holding off because she doesn’t want the answer to be ‘no’ yet again.

(Not that that’s stopped her before.)

Maybe she’ll try to force the issue. We’re more than a little afraid that Mariah might try and draw out our time together, possibly by throwing herself into stupid or inadvisable situations in the hopes we’ll feel obligated to stay. It wouldn’t be unprecedented, not when we have multiple examples of her willing to get hurt to keep us near her. She has reason to believe that might work too. While we’re not Dissonance-bound to make sure Mariah’s better off when we leave her, it would be bad practice to abandon her while a laser chainsaw wielding Vapulan renegade-hunter is right on her tail.

(If it came down to it, we’d probably help her out with the first couple.)

(But letting her get away with that would be bad practice too. Sometimes, people need to live with the results of their poor decisions.)

We can feel our imminent freedom. Our second Dawn Essence in years came in shortly before Mariah set off on her journey. Just seven more and we’ll be full up and ready to escape. Seven more days. One more week, and we could be free.

If Mariah insists on staying closed mouthed about her future, then maybe we should take this time to think about our own. Then we think about everything that’ll be in front of us: Our dissonance, our debts, our lapsed friendships. All of that seems too big to think about.

(So start smaller.)

All right, then. Once we’re free, what do we do next?

In theory, we could stick by Mariah while she makes her choice. Extra sets of eyes would be useful to keep Tech and the Game off her back, and we could introduce her to some friendly Elohim of a compatible Word (not Creation) who could answer her questions about what she might one day become.

In practice, staying leaves too much room for ambiguity and too much temptation for Mariah to want to make it permanent. It’ll be best for both of us [her and me] if we [I] just leave. No ceremony, nothing drawn out, just a quick good-bye and a clean break.

We’re briefly tempted to consult with her on that topic. How does she want us to leave? Does she want advance warning when we’re ready to try our escape. Would she prefer if we just float away while her attention is elsewhere, farewells optional. But even as some of us feel that giving her that choice seems like the kindest way to do it, even more feel the cruelty that would come with forcing that decision upon her.

So we let the ride continue on in silence except for our chorus which slides from Dancing Queen to Bohemian Rhapsody (always a favorite).

Mariah’s only acknowledgment of our presence is a small, resigned sigh.

—

Even in a vessel, Mariah doesn’t have most of the biological needs that humans do, which means there’s no need for her to stop for meals, or bathroom breaks, or even sleep. She could, of course, but so far, despite staying at or under the speed limit, her only stops have only been for gas.

(Cars, being distinct from celestials, still have their usual requirements to run.)

The only disruption from this pattern comes when Mariah pulls off the road too soon after the last tank of gas and parks the car. Is this our destination?

We focus our ears on the world around us, trying to get any input we can. Sounds of gathering humans surround us: parents cajoling with children, children begging for money to buy snacks from the vending machines, dogs snuffling about as they do their business and then running about to stretch their legs, even a little bit of wildlife tolerating the human presence as they scavenge around for any stray food.

This must be a rest-stop—one of those innately corporeal places that we celestials rarely have reason to be at. At least, not without a native in tow.

(Mariah only has us.)

What’s Mariah’s purpose here?

She doesn’t do much, that we can tell. She just gets out of the car and walks a bit—not much, just enough that the her steps take her from crumbly asphalt to soft grass, and then she…just sits down at a picnic table and does nothing, says nothing. She just breathes silent even breaths as the minutes (hours?) pass by. Sometimes she touches our crystal and pulls it slightly from her neck. We lose count of the groups of (assumed) humans who arrive, do their business, and head out. Flocks of geese call out overhead.

(We swear we can hear the slow, steady flap of their wings.)

“Sunset,” Mariah murmurs. It’s the first words she’s spoken to us since she planned her route.

“Is that what you’ve spent your time waiting for?”

Mariah doesn’t answer with words as such, but she finally does walk back to her car.

—

Mariah can remain silent about her intentions, and she takes steps to prevent us from guessing where where’s going (like keeping the radio off), but there’s no way to hide the drive itself from us. We dangle from Mariah’s neck like a pendant, and we can’t help but experience everything she does.

The drive has changed from rural highways and occasional towns to the more populated patterns we’ve previously observed from the bodies of various migratory birds. The cars that pass by us now all go in the same direction as Mariah—we must be on an interstate now. Traffic moves, slows and stops erratically. At one point, Mariah stops the car and speaks tersely with someone to demand coins in exchange.

(If the toll-collector hears us sing, they don’t say anything to Mariah.)

(They probably witness weirder phenomena on any given day.)

Mariah drives on.

Most of us know not to get too optimistic. Yes, Mariah seems to be going in a direction that’s familiar to us, but Chicago isn’t the only major city within driving distance of Mariah’s starting point. And even if she were heading in that direction, that doesn’t mean her destination will be the one we’ve suggested to her—especially when she’s gone out of her way not to ask for directions.

But the signs are adding up, and we have reason to hope.

—

It’s not much longer before Mariah reveals her decision—or we should say—when Mariah is forced into revealing her decision. Her vehicle stops (is stopped) suddenly.

Mariah rolls her window down.

“Name, credentials, and reason for visit,” a voice demands. It’s neither cheerful nor bored. In fact it sounds suspicious of Mariah, whether that’s due to the demon herself or the day and time at which she’s arrived.

We feel Mariah take a deep breath. Her vessel’s heart pounds beneath us. The harsh act she’s put on this whole trip is at the edge of crumbling. “My name is Mariah, and I come from a…a rival lab. I’m here to talk about a job change.”

There’s a little bit of a pause while the guard consults with someone over the phone. The stray words that escape speak of plausible deniability. Mariah could be a demon looking to redeem or someone working an unexpected night-shift. Finally the guard hangs up the phone and sighs. “All right. Go ahead and park over on Discovery Road and stay inside your vehicle. Someone will be by to escort you shortly.”

Mariah follows the guard’s instructions. Then, she turns off the ignition and leans back into the seat. We feel the deliberation of her breathing as she tries to regain some control over her reactions. It’s similar to what we’ve helped her through before.

“You took our suggestion, then.” We say as we [Mariah and I] wait for the promised escort to arrive.

“I suppose I did,” Mariah’s voice is completely blank. “It wasn’t hard to get to, once I knew where to go.”

“No. I suppose not.” We shift topics. “What made you decide?”

For a moment, it seems like Mariah won’t answer, but then she sighs and tilts her head upward. “The Emptiness made me realize my whole worldview was entirely based on delusions. I put so much of myself into trying to get back what had been lost for good or trying to hold on to something I never really had. My whole head is a mess.” She picks us up briefly and settles us back down. “Maybe this is what will finally fix me.”

“I don’t know if it’s that simple,” we say because anyone walking up to Redemption deserves the truth.

“Of course it’s not,” Mariah says sharply, “but what better choice do I have? My Resonance is broken because of one Discord. That second Discord makes it difficult for me to blend in with humans. It’s only a matter of time before the Game or my former Prince catch up to me. You’re about to—”

Mariah cuts off that last statement. The someone to escort us has arrived. Multiple someones actually, as two sets of footsteps approach us—a heavy thud of work boots and a lighter patter of what might be flat dress shoes. We’re back to an upright position, and Mariah rolls down the car window again.

The footsteps stop. An imperious, feminine voice (Dress Shoes) calls out from slightly above our position. “Stay in the car, and keep your hands visible.”

Mariah shifts slowly, slightly.

“State your name, Band, and Word.”

“Mariah. Habbalite. Formerly of Technology.” We note the lack of correction regarding the word ‘Band’. Smart. Or maybe her delusion really has been broken for good.

“You stated an interest in a job change. Are we correct to interpret this as an interest in becoming an Elohite?”

Another of those deep breaths. Mariah’s desire to present herself as cool and collected for these angels (we assume) fights against the somatic signals coming from her vessel. We can feel her shaking beneath us and the way she struggles against the urge to hyperventilate. The decision Mariah makes now takes her between life and death and we wonder how readily these angels will let her walk away from it if she changes her mind.

Her voice is dead flat when she speaks. “I would like to stop serving Hell. I would like to see Heaven. Becoming an Elohite seems to be a necessary prerequisite to fulfill those desires.”

“Noted. Next question: did you arrive here alone and under your own free will?”

(We are in a War and—as Cole has told us—Tethers are essentially strategic outposts. While very few demons would walk into a Tether and declare an intent to to redeem as a method if infiltration, it’s not impossible.)

Mariah hesitates. Her lack of introduction tells us she’d prefer to have kept us a secret, but she must also know that it would be bad form for her to lie right now. “I have a Kyriotate in this Force Catcher,” She admits at last. We feel ourselves being lifted up slightly. “Otherwise, I came here alone. No coercion.”

“True,” Dress Shoes—almost a certainly a Seraph—says. Her attention turns to us. “And who are you in the Force Catcher?”

“Kira, a Kyriotate.” Normally we would have chosen a different name to introduce ourself with in this context, as well as volunteering our Word affiliation (especially since Lightning is decently friendly towards Creation) but we have Mariah to think about and the concept of multiple aliases and missing information is not one we want to explain to a Habbalite on the brink of—something. Redemption? A nervous breakdown? The two don’t seem mutually exclusive right now.

“Kira,” The voice hesitates to use the name we gave her because the name, while not quite false, matches neither our True Name nor our preferred nickname. Definitely a Seraph then. “Do you vouch for this Habbalite and her sincerity?”

For all of Mariah’s recent opacity, we have a surprisingly short internal debate. She’s never been the kind to half-ass any notion that’s come to her mind.

(The sounds of her carving that hole in herself vividly replay in several of our minds.)

“Yes.”

We don’t worry whether the Seraph believes us; that’s the beauty of talking with that Choir.

“Very well,” The Seraph says at last “You may get out of the car. Carl here will escort you to the main building where the Seneschal will be with you to further discuss your options.”

Work Boots—Carl—steps forward, but Mariah doesn’t move just yet. “Can I get a few minutes of privacy?” Mariah asks. “I won’t go anywhere. I just need to say good-bye to my friend here.” Her voice breaks slightly at the word ‘friend’.

(We don’t know if we’d call the entanglement we have with Mariah ‘friendship’, but we won’t dispute the term.)

(Not now. Not when she’s about to free us.)

There’s some hesitation—probably Resonance use on the part of the Seraph at least—before they both take a couple steps back. “You can say goodbye to them over there. We’ll wait here,” the Seraph says at last.

“That’s fine.” Mariah gets out of the car and walks a bit. The chain we’re hanging from jerks as Mariah’s unsteady hands fumble around with the closure, but eventually she sets us down on a bit of concrete.

“You know,” she says, trying to act casual, even as she can’t quite banish the quaver from her voice. “I finally figured out the other side of the host analogy.”

“The other side?”

(As though there’s only one other side.)

“When you first made the analogy, I took it as your way of declaring your intent to be useful to me and perhaps as a warning that you would use and manipulate me for your own ends. But that was always fine. Hell is Hell, and that’s how things work there. But your leaving was always a part of it too, wasn’t it?”

We could pretend otherwise, but what would be the point? “Yes.”

“So, I guess this is it.” Mariah says—her voice comes slightly more from above than usual. We’re maybe knee high to her. “You’re finally getting what you wanted.”

(One thing. We’ve gone through literal Hell, and all we get is this lousy survival.)

(And one demon turned towards the light. That’s more than nothing.)

“I guess it is. How long have I been in here?”

Mariah pauses, and we can hear her doing calculations under her breath. “Three, four years maybe. You came to me spring three years ago, and it’s autumn now.”

Three years. On the big celestial timeline where our mother—created just after the big capital ‘F’ Fall—can still be considered young by some celestials’ standards, it’s not a long time at all. Hell, it’s not even very long even by some human standards. But we haven’t even been downstairs for a whole century yet, and that time still feels like a lot in terms of all the things we could have experienced and all the people we could have helped.

We can count on one hand (assuming a human-standard quantity of fingers) the number of regular hosts we’ve kept around for at least that long and we struggle to think of many more we’ve worked with for more than a year.

“That’s a long time for me to work with a single being, even a long-term host.”

“Is it?” Mariah paces in a short line in front of us. We could almost be in Tartarus again, in that device on her worktable, except that freedom is so close that our forces almost vibrate with restlessness.

“It is.”

Mariah takes her time with her reply. “You know, I didn’t have to bring you here with me. I could have left you behind in Tartarus. Or abandoned you back in the woods where I first came up to the Corporeal. Or traded you to one of my former Wordmates in exchange for an actually useful resource.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.”

She clearly wants us to ask, and so we do: “Why not?”

“Because I meant what I said to you after you found out how I lost my vessel. We’re connected, and not even the Emptiness could show me that was a delusion. You offered to make yourself a part of me, and I accepted. Carried you around, even. Like I told you: Whatever happened to me would happen to you too.”

“And you meant it,” we conclude.

(Mariah never half-commits to ideas.)

“And I meant it.” Mariah takes a deep breath. We hear her stop in front of us. “Which is why it needs to be this way. To break our connection on my terms. You understand, right?”

“I do.” We think we do, anyway. Rather than waiting for us to collect enough Essence to escape on our own or trying to coax us into stay with her longer, Mariah is choosing to set us free on her own terms. Smart of her.

“You know, if I make it through this, maybe we’ll see each other again someday.”

“Maybe we will.”

“But it won’t be the same.”

“No,” we say wryly, “let’s hope it isn’t.”

—

There are two ways to open a force catcher.

The most common way is via a password or phrase that functions like a key to a cage. Mariah probably does know the ones for the force catchers she uses, if only to handle situations like the one she found herself in with that War Kyriotate without having to sacrifice a valuable Artifact. Freedom could be as simple as a few words—whether that’s in Helltongue or some earthly language. Hey, it might even be lyrics to one of those terrible Techsynth songs Mariah used to listen to back in Hell. We doubt it. But it might be.

But for us, Mariah chooses the other method.

And we don’t know that until a sickening, splintering sound hits right in the center of the crystal and shatters. Fragments fly away from a center point, and shards shed from our celestial form like bits of broken glass. A sharp stab lands right in the center of our forces—right where that initial blow hit the crystal, in fact. The pain that radiates out from the wound is the first actual sensation we’ve felt since our last Force left that squirrel three years ago.

Angelic curses flow from our mouths.

It is beautiful.

Our other senses come rushing back to us all at once. Eyes that have seen nothing but blank for years open up to the world—night sky, up-lights illuminating a flag pole, scattered lights in the Tether behind us, streetlights in the distance, and most of a moon overhead. Actual lights contrast with actual dark. Wings that have collapsed in on themselves under the confinement of the force catcher open and flutter. Our own celestial form glows neon-bright.

Our colors are wrong.

(We can see ourself. We know we’ve changed.)

(We can’t think about that right now.)

Our newly-freed Forces scatter in an instinctive search for hosts. A couple of them find purchase in a nearby owl. Others venture into a nearby neighborhood to find a cat sleeping on a warm lap. More find a wandering fox. We get drunk on the world. We take joy in motion—of our own self-propelled kind and the flow of air under our wings as we take to the sky. A tired human idly scratches our borrowed head while she reads the next page in her novel. We savor the stretch of our forelimbs as we extend our claws contentedly, while in another body we sink into sensations of the fox’s wilder life: scent and soil, prey and competition.

We’ve missed these experiences dearly, and more beyond, but we have unfinished business.

We fly the owl back to the Tether.

Of course, the parking lot is mostly empty, it’s about half-past-nine (our cat reads the clock sitting on a fireplace mantle) on a weekend night. We catch sight of the guard, back at his post and three figures standing near a mostly empty road. A car that looks like it’s being held together with duct-tape and sorcery is the only one we see. Two figures stand near the car—Dress Shoes, tall and slender, definitely Seraphic in shape as well as behavior, and Work Boots, a stout and slightly shorter man of unknown nature—to observe the third.

(‘Observe’ being a loose and somewhat inaccurate way to describe how the Seraph hesitates between stepping forward and staying back. Her companion stays put.)

We’ve never actually seen Mariah before—not in her native form, not in the vessel she lost to War, and, until now, not the replacement—but we immediately identify the young woman in the plain, tall vessel as her. She still stands in the spot where she broke our Force Catcher, a hammer on the ground next to her left foot.

The figure we identify as Mariah looks out across the water. Looking out, actually, in the direction we parked the owl in after our initial flyby swoops. The expressions that run through her face reflect a mental breakdown in progress—blank and horrified and angry and grieving and proud all in a cycle. She falls to her knees at one point. Our acute owl eyes see the shine of tears in the distant lamplight, and our ears pick up the sound of an occasional escaped sob.

Occasionally we swear her gaze catches on our silhouette.

We resist the urge to come in closer. Even after all Mariah has done to us—and all she deprived us from and our own desire to leave these past few years behind—a minority of us wishes we didn’t have to leave Mariah so quickly. We did, after all, lead her here, and Redemption must be scary enough even with a friend at your side.

(Maybe we should ask Cole sometime.)

But it’s not entirely selfishness that keeps us from swooping across the water and properly introducing ourself. Redemption is scary, yes, but it’s only part of the process Mariah needs to go through become a proper Elohite. She needs to find something to love that’s bigger than a single, isolated Kyriotate: The Symphony, a Word, a way of life. It’s fine that we’re (part of) what led her to seek Redemption, but what will keep her Elohite even after we’ve gone?

(Cautionary tales go around in Creation about demons who fell in love with an angel and redeemed, only to have the relationship fall apart afterwards. Not all of those stories end with capital ‘H’ Heartbreak and a fall, but enough do that we’d rather not put ourself—or her—at risk of becoming the latest example.)

No, it’s best if we leave Mariah to forge her own path. Let it be clear that whatever she walks into tonight is for her own reasons, and let her be the Elohite she’s meant to be.

We fly off.

Maybe in a decade or two, we’ll check in.

Chapter 35: Meanwhile, Mariah follows through.

Chapter Text

Kira rose up from that shattered crystal like so much vapor—a misty cloud of luminous pink and green, like the vital version of the stone that had held her. And the butterflies—Butterflies! Mariah would not have expected to see those of Kira—fluttered and danced within that cloud. Ink-colored eyes opened and blinked in asymmetric perfection. A chorus of voices—no longer muffled by any barriers—sang out her curses in such sublime Angelic harmony it made Mariah’s ears nearly bleed with its beauty.

She was glorious, as beautiful as that one Flowers Kyriotate had been long ago. More so even, for Mariah having known her.

Mariah could have observed Kira for hours, cataloging her features, tracking the darts and flutters of each moving piece, measuring how the light glittered off those eyes. She wanted to see deep within that cloud of Kira and determine whether those butterflies went all the way down.

Then, as Kira’s Forces found corporeal homes, her celestial form evaporated.

More than three years together, and those few seconds were all Mariah would be allowed to keep.

The hammer fell from her grasp and clattered to the ground. It missed her foot by centimeters. Mariah looked down to see her favorite force catcher sitting on the concrete barrier, shattered and useless, which seemed appropriate—a broken stone in exchange for a broken Heart, both the literal one now in shards on the floor of a supply room in a building that no longer meant anything to Mariah and the metaphorical one inside her.

It felt odd to regret losing someone. Mariah had lost many things before—possessions, abilities, esteem, potential—and had regretted those, but she’d never cared enough about an actual person—not in her first, more promising research career and definitely not in her second one as an expendable minion—to miss anyone one way or another. No one else had ever been worth holding on to. But Mariah had held on to Kira. She had built Kira a home—the case that was her finest piece of engineering, and when that had proved insufficient, Mariah had carved Kira a second home in her own celestial body right where a heart might have been were it a vessel. Mariah rested a hand to her sternum as though it could cover the hollowness of Kira’s absence.

Had Kira really needed to leave so soon?

Yes, Mariah had chosen to let go first, but she hadn’t known even a minute ago exactly how losing Kira would feel.

For a Lightning Tether, this place was surrounded by nature—forest and grassland, the perfect place for Kira to scatter her forces into some nearby wildlife. An owl landed on a tree across a small stretch of water, invisible but for its slightly darker silhouette against the gaps in the foliage.

Was that Kira? Had she come back?

Mariah’s hands curled into fists. Nails pressed into her palms. Were this her celestial form with its claws, she would have bled. Kira needed to be by her side—not even in human shape, just that owl body would be fine, if only Mariah could have her close again. Kira needed to be long gone—no hosts of any kind at all near by. Just leave Mariah to Redeem or perish. None of this liminal observation! Kira needed to choose one extreme or another—here or far away, everything they could have been together or nothing at all.

Emotions welled up, and Mariah could do nothing to mitigate them. She had no whims to sublimate them into, and no suitable target to resonate them out towards. No Emptiness effect muted them. Even hiding them proved impossible the way her sobs leaked out her mouth despite her best efforts and the way her legs gave out beneath her body. Her knees hit the grass. All she could do was let it pass through.

The owl finally flew off to do whatever owls—or Kyriotates—did.

And eventually, Mariah calmed. The emotions didn’t entirely disappear, of course, not like they might after a Resonance effect wore. These were Mariah’s own emotions triggered by an actual event that wouldn’t un-happen just because Mariah wished she had done it differently.

She brushed a hand across her face and scowled at the evidence. Still weak even now, and she wasn’t even alone in the privacy of her workshop. Heaven angels—actual angels—looked on. If Mariah were them, would she accept herself in this state, weak as she was? Were she them, would she believe herself worthy of the Heaven denied to her as a Habbalite? Or would she only be worthy of burning to ash in a Tether locus like the common demon she still couldn’t quite believe herself to be?

She considered her options. Was it too late to just leave?

Mariah got to her feet and looked at her surroundings. Running away would be useless, embarrassing even. Her escorts stood between her and the mobile trash-heap she drove to get here. No. She came here. She asked for the chance to redeem and the Heaven angels here would either give it to her or not. She had to go forward. Change or die. It would hurt, but how much worse could the pain get compared to that time on her former Archangel’s—Prince’s—examination table?

Mariah took some deep calming breaths—she couldn’t help but hear Kira’s voice in gentle, patient Helltongue coaching her through it—and put her mind in order. Kira by her side or not, Mariah was making this choice, and no matter what happened as a result she would remain strong until the end. She’d endure. Maybe, she would even overcome.

She walked back towards her escorts. “I’m ready.”

—

For Mariah, the strangest part of her walk into this Divine Tether wasn’t the location itself. That was a given for what she intended to do. No, it was the relative lack of touch by her escorts. This wasn’t like the motel room where one of the War Angels had held her in a lock while they discussed her fate. Nor was it like it had been when her Discord first appeared, where each step from promising research assistant to disposable minion had been undergone with someone dragging her along. Her escorts trusted Mariah to come along willingly, and gave her little more than verbal guidance when directions were needed.

And she did. What else would she do?

They took her to a small meeting room in one of the smaller buildings. Mariah turned down the offer for coffee—she’d hold onto the small dignity of not displaying that Discord—or any other hot beverage. Her stomach already fluttered. However, she did take an offered seat. Carl sat with her, while the Seraph said something about the Seneschal and left.

Mariah fiddled with the mood ring while she waited and considered her escorts’ emotional states. The Seraph had been anxious, more so after Mariah had freed Kira, and it was frustrating both that Mariah cared about the reason why and that had no way to figure that out short of asking, which she wouldn’t. Had it been something Mariah had done? Or did was it something about the situation itself? How often did Tethers get visitors like her?

Carl had been…and Mariah realized she couldn’t quite name the emotion the ring reflected or even the color given off. She might call it solemn interest perhaps, as though Mariah’s presence here was a topic of both utmost importance and deep curiosity. Not that he showed it as he sat across from her and focused on a diagram sketched out on his legal pad. Every couple of minutes he looked up as if he were inviting her to say something.

“I wonder if becoming an Elohite will make all this easier.” She twisted her ring compulsively. Her fingers wanted to fidget, and she had to stop herself from tapping down on the table. She couldn’t bear the reminder. “I mean, having to say good-bye someone you like and not knowing if you’ll ever see them again.”

Carl nodded and looked back down at his paper, and Mariah wondered again what Choir he might be. Her initial thought had been Cherub, with his somewhat stocky body type and the way she found his presence quietly reassuring in the exact opposite way Tizzy’s presence used to induce anxiety, but now she wasn’t so sure.

“Ease is difficult to define,” he said at last. “A situation like yours would prove difficult for any choir, your future one included. But it’s likely you will be able to contextualize it better once you’re an Elohite.” Despite his detachment, Mariah had the sense Carl had a personal understanding. “If your separation from that Kyriotate you were entangled with was truly for the best, it will be what it needs to be.”

“And what if it wasn’t for the best? What if I really do need to find her again?”

“Then you would find a way to pursue the issue in a manner that would harm neither you nor her nor your Archangel’s interests.” He raised an eyebrow up at her, which clearly expressed his evaluation of the matter. “If you couldn’t do that, then it wouldn’t be for the best.”

That explanation made sense for all that Mariah disliked it. She nodded. “Are you happy being an Elohite?”

She did take a small amount of gratification when he blinked twice.

“Happiness has plenty of nuances.” Carl said, and Mariah could watch his face to see him organizing his thoughts for her. “I have meaningful work that makes use of my skills—” He held up the notepad he worked on, schematics for a complicated machine that Mariah couldn’t fathom the purpose of. “—competent and usually pleasant colleagues—” He gestured to the door the Seraph left from. “—and a few hobbies to indulge in when it becomes optimal to take breaks.” He procured a cube built of multicolored squares and passed it over to Mariah. “Occasionally, I want things my nature does not allow me to pursue, but I’ve never yet found those desires unmanageable or even persistent. So, I suppose in a general definition, yes, I am happy.”

Mariah examined the cube he’d handed over and realized it contained sections she could rotate in various directions and shift the multi-colored squares into different positions, all except the centers. “This is a puzzle to try and get all the same colored squares on a side?”

“Yes. Do you want to try and solve it? See if you can figure out the algorithms.”

Mariah fiddled with the cube and watched how it changed as she rotated it. Trying to figure out the logic behind the movement was a perfect, trivial distraction while she waited for the next terrifying step in this process to begin and tried desperately not to think of green and pink butterflies.

The Seraph returned not too long after and alongside her was the Seneschal.

—

The conversation with the Seneschal had not gone how Mariah had anticipated. She had expected glowering lectures and harsh interrogation, but there was none of that. He was an affable man—a Mercurian actually—with an easy smile under his mustache and a receding hairline, and despite her previous apprehensions, he had no question of whether Mariah was worthy to attempt Redemption.

When she asked if there would be he merely said, “You’re here,” as though those two words alone sufficiently answered any inquiry she could have along that line. Perhaps they did.

Instead the bulk of the conversation had gone to logistical matters and obligatory disclaimers. The Redemption process had its risks, and was Mariah aware of them? Yes. She had come to this Tether with the full knowledge that both soul death and Force loss were possible outcomes of a Redemption attempt. What would happen if Mariah weren’t ready to redeem yet? Arrangements could be made to take her to another location—even to a Tether of a different Word if she preferred. Sessions with a pre-Redemption counselor could also be set up, if that would be more comfortable for her. Mariah said no to both offers. The sooner the terrifying part happened, the sooner it would be over with.

The Seneschal did have one request. Would Mariah permit her information to be added to the data set of redemption candidates? Mariah hadn’t realized that such a thing existed—either a data set itself or the ability to opt out of research. Consent meant nothing in Technology. Whether specimen or servitor, a test subject was merely a test subject.

She almost said ‘no’ just for the novelty of refusing someone clearly more powerful than her. However, when she thought about it for a few seconds, she found she did want a record of herself to exist in Heaven, even if it was just an entry in a database to say that she, Mariah, had been here, and she had gone through this process.

“That’s fine.”

Mariah set the cube aside, and looked at the what the Seneschal passed over to her. Two pieces of paper stapled together, type-written front and back. The top page asked for basic biographical information: Name, Band, age, Force count and so on down. Discord was mentioned, of course. There were spaces to describe her former work for Hell—Mariah wondered how poorly these Heaven angels would react to that—and to summarize previous encounters with the Host. “Do all these fields need to be filled in?”

“Participation is entirely voluntary and answers are deidentified as much as possible. Answer what you feel comfortable with now. If you find you want to give more thorough responses later, you will be given the opportunity to do so. If you need help interpreting a question, Carl or Lois will be able to clarify.” Carl and the Seraph both nodded their heads.

Mariah mirrored the gesture back at them before focusing back on the Seneschal. “I understand, sir.”

The Seneschal stood up. “Before I head back to my office and queue up a message to the boss, is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Just one thing. If Kira…if she ever comes back here and asks about me…someone will tell her, right? No matter how it works out, I want her to know what happened.”

Mariah’s mood ring turned a pale and dusty shade of blue. The Seneschal smiled at her, small and serious. “If anybody by that name asks, we’ll make sure she gets the news.”

That was all Mariah could let herself hope for. “Thank you.”

—

The Archangel Jean waited for Mariah at the top of a metal staircase next to the upper third of a towering machine clearly built for a type of research both larger and smaller than Mariah could fathom. Stern eyes examined Mariah, and she had the distinct sense that the Archangel saw not only her vessel but the celestial inside, Discords and all. He nodded and motioned for Mariah to approach, his gestures all carved out through precision tooling.

Mariah climbed towards him. Each of her footsteps echoed through the expansive chamber. Static electricity raised the hairs on her arms and possibly her head. Was that the energy of the Tether locus or the Archangel himself? She stood before him and her body fell into the familiar posture of attention—back straight, trying to keep her shaky hands open-palmed on her thighs.

“You came here to talk.” The Archangel’s voice was harsh in a way her ex-Prince’s had never been, not even after her first big mistake. Mariah should find it intimidating—and it was, a bit—but his lack of sugar-coating felt like a mercy. He would not lure her into a false sense of security.

“I have.”

“So, let’s talk.”

They had a utilitarian conversation. A Habbalite’s uncertainty: Mariah did not know how well she would serve Lightning. Her current skills and experience did not match up with a career in research. An Elohite’s reassurance: Lightning could be versatile. A Word transfer could be arranged, if desired. Options could be explored until the best fit was found. The topic of Kira never came up at all.

They had a metaphysical conversation. Mariah still could not quite believe she wasn’t an angel, not even with the Emptiness inside her just over a day gone. Nor could she shake the idea that an Elohite was not merely the imperfect larval state of a Habbalite but its divine opposite. She laid out her explanation and the foundational points of her existence: she had been part of the Choir in Hell tasked with punishing the unworthy, and the Voice of God had driven her actions, right up to the point where its infallibility snapped. Even knowing better, she still saw herself as divine. Not even an Archangel could completely convince her otherwise, not with words alone.

When she started to repeat her points a third time, the Archangel Jean held up his hand again.

Mariah stopped her speech in its tracks.

“I can help you understand,” Jean said, the conclusion of their current conversation, and the start of the next one. He offered out that hand to her. “If you would give me the honor of showing you.”

There was no examination table here. No straps held her down. An Archangel had simply made his offer, and Mariah could say, “No, not yet,” to it. She could turn around and descend those noisy metal stairs and return to the Seneschal and ask to take advantage of one of the several options already offered to her.

But she didn’t. Mariah had made her decision two days ago, and she would follow through. She took his hand with her own trembling one, and wondered if this would be her end or her beginning. “Yes.”

His grip tightened around hers. “Very well.”

For all that Mariah had ever believed about Elohim and their many weaknesses, the Archangel of Lightning certainly knew how to explain a concept.

Chapter 36: Raye finds her way home.

Chapter Text

One of our crows catches a glimpse of a particular calico cat out on the street, collar already gone, looking almost as bedraggled and harassed as she did the first time we met her. There’s a sigh that takes place entirely within our Forces as we take hold of her again.

Preerana, wherever you are, keep holding on until we can see each other again.

Months have passed since the force catcher broke away from us. Summer is ending, and the first signs of autumn have started to touch the trees. Mother still sends us messages regularly and we keep thinking we’ll send a response...next month.

(Calendars exist on the Corporeal, and we can actually tell she sends them monthly.)

It’s not that we don’t want to see her. Almost all of us do. It’s just that contacting Mother means contacting Judgment by extension, and we’re doing a thorough enough job of judging ourselves on our own. We don’t need to turn it into a formal trial.

We’ve taken this cat into our hive four times since summer began. Each time, we’ve gotten her fed, cared for, and set up with a new home. And yet, she still returns to the street. Maybe the fifth time’s the charm?

Sure, it might be pointless to do the same thing over again, but honestly, it’s not like we’re doing anything more important with our forces. Back in Hell, we thought we could be back to our usual work within a few days. Our more realistic minds might have extended that to a few weeks or maybe even a month or two once we cleaned up the loose ends (our dissonance, our debts). But after almost a year, not only are we not back to our usual jobs, we haven’t even addressed those aforementioned loose ends.

(Addressing them means talking about their cause. Do we want to hear a Seneschal lecture about why it was bad we learned Helltongue? Or explain to some random Trader what three years in Hell does to an angel’s Essence reserves?)

Some cats are feral, raised and socialized to live out on the streets in little families or colonies that those who spend all of their time here in human bodies don’t really pay attention to. The cat we’ve taken hold of is not one of those cats. If she were, managing her situation would be as easy as integrating her into one of the local groups, preferably one being cared for by some animal-loving human in the community.

The truth is, we’re not the Kyriotate we were four years ago. The need for the support we give hasn’t gone away. If anything, our ears are better at catching the people who need help now: Conversations between people who have impossible crushes on each other, secret aspirations sighed out from underneath someone’s breath, new parents who just need a little respite. Just…every time we think we might be ready to take on a human host, our eyes catch a flash of light on a glass watch face or the shine from a gemstone on a ring—to say nothing of actual crystal pendants—and turn away. We’re not ready to risk our freedom on ‘probably safe’.

And sure, we’re not required to use human hosts to do our work. We’re Creation. If we put a couple of minds to it, surely we can figure out ways of doing most of what we used to do in human bodies with a cat or a crow instead. (And of course raccoons! Let’s not forget raccoons!) But, we couldn’t do it as well; we’d bring undue attention on our critter hosts, and overall, it just doesn’t seem worth the bother. We went down to Hell, why? Because we wanted to help an old lady bake her family’s famous cookies. Now, we’re out after seeing a whole Hell-side Vapulan operation at work from the inside. Our old job of moving amongst creatively-blocked humans to look for potential Soldiers seems just as trivial as helping out this cat whose body we’re currently licking the hind leg of.

The first time we met her, we found her a new home. (So we thought.) The second time, we tried to return her to that same new home only to break her out because she didn’t want to be there and we didn’t want a second note of dissonance. The third and fourth time we took her to other houses. We vetted the people ahead of time, made sure they were nice folks and kind to animals. We observed them for days before leaving her. Even Jordi might have approved of our selections.

We need a new approach, and not too long ago, we would have found it as easy as making one. As easy as sliding a spare force into a sparrow. As easy as sketching out a composition on a gridded page. But now, we’re well and truly blocked. If we can’t make ourself talk to Mother because of Judgment, then maybe we should get in touch with War. We could send a message to Cole, and—leave time permitting—it would meet up with us so long as it wasn’t in the middle of a vital operation. But it very well could be busy, and we’re not sure we could handle a ‘not right now’ response.

The cat left all those houses with all those nice people. Hosts make their own choices, and it’s silly of us to forget that principle applies to the owners of all bodies, and not just the talkative, Mercurian-shaped ones.

(Especially when the host in question is a cat of all beings.)

We haven’t been back to the Tether to check in on Mariah. Sometimes, we think we should. She was a host of ours—if only metaphorically—and we did leave her in a precarious situation. There’s no risk quite like Redemption. But Mariah was never our literal host; we were never at risk of dissonance if she ended up in a bad situation because of us. Besides, we have faith in Mariah—or if not in Mariah herself, then in Lightning’s ability to make the proper assessments and do what they can to maximize Mariah’s probability of survival. Redemption attempts require an Archangel’s presence, and Jean is a notoriously busy Elohite. Why waste his time with a candidate who is likely to fail?

Yes, Lightning would have a method. They don’t improvise the way we [Creationers] do. Mariah is likely fine and settling into her new life as an Elohite. We don’t need to worry.

(What would we be told even if we did drop by? Lightning isn’t known to be forthcoming, and Mariah herself loved withholding information from us until the last minute.)

Maybe we just need to accept that our continuing efforts to find this cat a new home are futile. Sure, we could get lucky and finally find her a home she can accept. Or maybe we just need to accept that we need to let this go for good and and let this cat go on her merry, flea-bitten way. Not every job we take on has a big result. That’s a risk we have to accept when the people we help ultimately make their own decisions. Sometimes, our efforts explode out in ways (both good and bad) we can’t imagine. Other times, they come to exactly nil.

What even was the point of staying in the catcher for as long as we did? What did we accomplish by not breaking out as soon as we had the Essence to try? Despite what our grimmest voices say, it wasn’t for nothing. Mariah almost certainly became an angel or died trying. (We want to think she made it.) As for the Paper Shredder, we at least feel confident that whatever circumstances it currently finds itself in, it has to be better than its previous situation. And yes, we do count Force dissolution in that. The bar was in literal Hell. So, what does that count as? Two demons saved? Maybe?

(For a very loose definition of ‘saved’.)

Maybe it would help, if we’d actually accomplished something from a strategic perspective. Heaven and Hell are in a War, even if we had a tendency to forget about that fact in our day-to-day work. And then we were unceremoniously dragged behind enemy lines. What if we had managed to free our captive Choirmates, or the other angels? Or, since we’d failed that, what if we’d somehow found a way to burn that facility to the ground. Sure, the satisfaction would have been short-term at best, but it’d make a good story to tell Cole and a small group of Warriors. As it is, the best we can hope for is that maybe, somewhere, some collateral damage happened because of us. A newly-freed and very Angry Destroyer might have wrecked something truly important beyond even Tizzy’s abilities to hide it. Or, perhaps, a failure to prevent Mariah’s obviously pre-meditated Renegade situation so close to audit season might have landed the facility in trouble with the Game. If we didn’t manage to rescue anyone or cause any direct damage, then maybe—just maybe—we managed to cause a bit of Hell-on-Hell strife that weakens a subset of both Technology and the Game in the long-run.

(We know, we’re reaching.)

Yet, by the standard of any angel caught in Hell, even those uncertain outcomes count as a victory if for one reason only: We survived. Someone up in Judgment or Destiny probably has statistics of how few angels get taken down to Hell and come out of the experience (mostly) intact, and those numbers would probably tell them that we should be dead or Fallen by now. But no, here we are, the exception, still alive and mostly divine.

(Though currently pathetic and paralyzed.)

Maybe that’s why we keep trying with this one. If we can figure out how to help her, then maybe there’s still hope that we can figure out how to move on. We dash her across the street when the light’s green and into the park we’ve currently been borrowing the crows from. People pass through here all the time, and we can hope that one of them will find this wayward cat cute enough to give her a chance.

The problem with survival is that it costs. We’ve brought perspectives into our hive we would be better off without. The taste of spoken Helltongue the still lingers on our lips. Our ears remain hyper-vigilant at every sound. The once-vibrant Symphony dulls against the near-constant background cacophony. Hell had changed us, inside and out, and seeing our celestial form when Mariah released us hammered it (hah!) all home. We used to be painted all in glowing yellows and oranges—an expression of our mother’s hues given Kyriotate shape—but now our colors reflect the pink and green of the crystal Mariah kept us in. We might have remained a Kyriotate, but we’ll never again be the sunny little Kyriotate we loved being so much.

And that’s the issue here too, we realize as we skulk our little cat body through the park. This stray cat—a lost cat—had a home once and just ventured out a little too far one day. She doesn’t want to be a new cat for a new family in a new home. She wants to be herself again in her home with her people. Sure, it might be easier and more comfortable if she could just accept a new place to settle into, but as long she stays out on the streets, she can hold on to the hope that she might see her home again one day.

(Yes, yes, we can see the uncomfortable parallels.)

The sound of metal scraping on metal catches our attention. They’re not the harsh mechanical sounds like those we constantly heard in Tartarus, but more of a soft whisper that beckons to us. We keep the cat hidden in a bush and do a quick flyover in one of our crows to identify the source. He’s easy to spot from the sky what with his very colorful, very elaborate hat—the kind of Frankenstein creation that factories just wouldn’t produce even if they could. He’s currently sitting on a bench and knitting…something complicated that involves more needles than we could manage even in our celestial form, and the last time we met with him in person, he gave us a new attunement and an artifact pencil.

We crawl our cat out of the bushes and into the Archangel’s Eli’s line of sight. He recognizes us immediately with the same privilege that let us recognize him. Archangels and their servitors simply know each other. He pauses in his knitting and beckons us over with a hand gently tapping on his knees and a tck-tck-tck of his tongue.

We leap from the ground to the bench. Perhaps it’s just the cat’s own hunting instincts, but that yarn looks tempting to pounce on, and we have no reason not to. Our archangel isn’t one for formality. Crow and cat both focus on him as he smiles down at our nearest body. He still has that same reassuring smile we’ve always known—a good, Mercurian one that knows how to tell someone they’re valued. Our cat stops her woolen wresting and draws her front paws over his leg. We lift our feline head up to bathe in the sunbeam-like warmth of that smile.

His hand rests on our forehead. “So, kitty, long-time, no see. Tell me, what have you been up to lately?”

And we do, a shortened version of the whole ugly story bottled up inside us. When it ends, we’re staring down at the bench. Eli is the first person we’ve told this story to, and we don’t know how he’s going to react to it.

He tilts our chin up. “That was a tough situation you were in, little one, and you did very well just to make it out of there in one piece. It’s all I could have asked of you.” Our Archangel gives us an amazing scratch under the chin, the kind that makes us squint our eyes in contentment and nudge our face up against his hand. Our paws instinctively make a kneading motion against his paint-stained jeans. It’s as much an effect of being told we did well as it is the physical contact itself.

Then, too soon, he pulls his hand back, and the look he gives us turns solemn—not as stern as we could imagine Jean or Michael or Dominic being, but definitely more serious than we’ve ever seen him before. This is probably the worst mess he’s ever seen us in, and that includes the time we accidentally trashed his studio. “But you need to get back to your work. The world hasn’t stopped needing your help.”

“We’re sorry, boss.”

(We don’t feel the pressure to speak singular to our boss. He understands.)

He graciously nods at our apology, and then with one stroke of his hand down our cat’s spine, the faint buzz of dissonance we’ve been carrying for four whole years just vanishes. We welcome its absence like the silence after a persistent and annoying background noise finally stops.

An image of a house fills our mind. It’s a split level, and there’s a large front window with an empty space where a cat should be looking out of it. “You can start by getting this kitty home.” Seven digits fill our mind, presumably a local phone number that we could dial to reach it. We put the pieces together—Dial. Telephone. Talk. We’ll need a human host to talk to humans for the good of this creature we keep grabbing on to.

(Strictly speaking, we could find ways around the human host requirement. A raccoon or squirrel host could break into someone’s house and dial a telephone, while a crow tags along to make human-like speech sounds. However, this would defeat the purpose of the exercise.)

(This isn’t just about the cat.)

Then, Eli stands up. His knitting vanishes seamlessly into a jacket pocket, yarn and all. “Once you’ve done that, call your mother; she misses you.”

With that, he wanders away deceptively swiftly leaving us with a cat to take home and a piece of our old life to connect with. One loop after another. One bit of help. One bit of opportunity. We helped Mariah, who helped the Paper Shredder. Our Archangel helped us. Now it’s our turn to continue that chain. We take a crow to the sky to get a birds-eye-view of the people around us—those enjoying this bright, almost autumn day and those who are stuck inside. All we have to do to is pick one of them to host us and trust they won’t send us to Hell this time. We’ll give this cat a chance to go back to the life she wants.

(We’ll give ourself the chance to recapture a bit of who we used to be.)

Now, let’s just see if we can avoid making a mess of it.

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