Michael is still battling the leathery demon mantis but is visibly distraught at Melkor’s apparent(?) plight. “Harry!” he yells, “anything!”

Harry just got punched by the horned ground sloth and narrowly dodges its giant teeth snapping at him. But he points his staff in Melkor’s direction, and cries “Aquilevatus”, and a wide spray of water goes his way. He gets punched again.

:Should I…?:

Beneath fire and confusion and excruciation, Melkor ends.

“Fuck this,” declares Morgoth Bauglir.

Emanating dark anti-flames which chill the air and atomize water jets into hoarfrost. Clad in blackened plate-layered mithril armor. Carrying not a fucking tennis racket, but Grond, Hammer of the Underworld.

Morgoth floats erect at the base of the stairs, and with a crushing gauntlet seizes Rosanna by the throat.

“You are a wasp feeding on worms. I am a god.”

And he snaps her neck.

A silver coin tink-tinks to the ground at his feet.

Metal boxes. On wheels. So confining, cut off, undignified. This Great City, this Chicago, is not so large that Oromë could not stalk its corridors without steed…

Two things leap to attention at once: A veritable pillar of flagrant enemy chaos, some 25 leagues from where the huntsman stands.

And a white and gray custom Harley-Davidson VRSC motorcycle thundering down the street and rolling to a stop within fifteen feet.

”Hail. I’ll be commandeering that.”

“Die.” Grond swings over Harry Dresden in Morgoth’s two-handed grip, and piledrives Akariel bodily into the concrete of the house’s foundation.

Releasing the haft of the lodged hammer, Morgoth twists an outstretched hand toward Urumviel. Night-cold wraithing energy courses down the beast’s throat and freezes its life from within.

Tink.

Tink.

Harry is staring up at him from the floor, dazed and slack jawed. “Hell’s bells man, if you can do that what’d you need us for?” He mutters.

Michael has lowered his sword but holds it half ready, eyeing Melkor warily. With his other hand he grabs out a white handkerchief and reaches to collect Akariel and Urumviel’s coins.

Morgoth flexes his grip. Sways. “I —“

High Melkor slumps against the wall, shaking slightly, his sickass raiments and shit washing away like black mist in a really strong wind.

” — maybe shouldn’t have done that. They’re coming for me, we’ve gotta —“

And he collapses to the ground. He’s out cold.

Michael approaches Melkor carefully, sheathing his sword and checking for a pulse. “He’s alive,” the Knight confirms, “though he does not seem well. Who do you suppose he thinks is coming for him?”

“Beats me,” shrugs Harry. “Though in my experience when people say stuff like that it’s usually best to take them at their word.” He looks around the basement at the dead demon monsters. “A renegade Denarian huh? Not sure I really believed it up until now. What do you suppose his Fallen’s beef is with the others?” 

“I am not sure,” says Michael, looking around on the ground for the third coin. “The Church’s records do confirm that Meciel has repeatedly been in conflict with other Denarians, but the original cause pre-dates our earliest information. Certainly she has never offered to team up with a Knight before. Maybe we can ask when he wakes up.” 

He looks over at Harry. “You should go upstairs, do your private eye routine, see if they kept any records here or if there’s other useful information to be found. I’ll track down wherever this coin rolled off to and get Melkor back to the car. If there really is someone coming for him then we shouldn’t take too long.”

Fifteen minutes later, Harry jogs up to the Blue Beetle, just as Michael is laying Melkor’s limp body out in the back seat. Michael looks up at him, face grim. “Bad news,” he says,” as they slide into their seats and Harry starts the car. “I couldn’t find the coin anywhere. I knew that they had some ability to influence themselves towards being picked up, but this is the first time I’ve ever watched one drop to the ground and then not been able to find it.”

“That’s some real one ring to rule them all bullshit,” Harry says. “Hopefully it at least had to wedge itself somewhere so weird that it’ll be years and years before anyone picks it up again.”

“One can hope,” replies Michael. 

Riding against whipping wind along glass smooth paths at speeds even golden-hooved Nahar would be pressed to attain, the Huntsman traverses the wilds that lie between Chicago and the Enemy’s latest spoor.

Fun isn't something one considers when hunting down a dark god. But this... does put a smile on my face.

Plodding mortal vehicles are easily routed around. An upcoming many-wheeled cargo carrier is slower than most, and Oromë leans left and spurs on his mount.

This puts him head on with a rounded blue thing whose rust and two occupants are familiar sights. More power, more speed, and the truck to his right fades back.

“Hail!” he shouts from within the full gray helm, and leans right to return to the customary lane.

“Freakin’ motorcycles,” Harry mutters, braking to keep himself well away from the aggressive passer.

Oromë dismounts his steed at a lakehouse where death and chaos have recently visited.

He takes in the scene, stalking the perimeter, entering the main floor, surveying the damage.

The Black Foe was here, in the full flowing of his wrath. So too were the knight (bootprints) and the wizard (scorch marks from lancing flames). Having somehow survived, those two would surely have a tale to tell.

In the basement, behind the metal grate of an air vent, a glint catches the Huntsman’s keen eye.

Wink

Oromë levers the grate out of the wall and lies down to gain a proper vantage.

The blackened denarius? But judging by the First Enemy’s visual message, he lost and reclaimed this coin two nights prior.

He picks it up and examines it in detail and in depth.

“Not exactly, O Host.” A voice chuckles warmly and a woman’s form swirls into existence before him, walking out of the shadows of the basement. “This is not the blackened denarius that your Enemy carries, but a blackened denarius.”

“I am Naamah.”