Detective Sergeant Karrin Murphy brushes blonde hair out of her eyes impatiently props her boot-clad feet up on her desk, nudging aside her ancient government issue computer keyboard. She pulls out her phone and opens Twitter, refreshes, then starts upright as she sees Melkor’s video. She replays the entire thing twice, then swings her feet down and straps on her pistol.

A painfully tall, dark-and-handsome man in a black leather duster looks from a printed piece of paper up to Molly Carpenter.

“You’re telling me this guy just materialized in the dumpster behind St Mary’s, slapped a Denarian coin down on the dinner table, and melted holes in your dad’s roof without batting an eye. And now he’s putting a public bounty out on the coin by hacking into some official government account, and broadcasting from the top of Willis Tower, which for some reason he’s calling ‘Minas Sears’?

“Hell’s bells.”

Flick.

Melkor stares out at the fiery orange watercolor being painted over the city of Chicago by the setting sun.

Flick.

Some part of him wonders if Chicago has always had a sun and moon, or if it had to go through the awkward adolescent cosmic lamps and magical trees phase first.

Flick.

Another part of him wonders if you could breed a super dog by filling that stadium over there with strays and running it at 1000x speed.

Flick.

Another part of him wonders what’s taking them so long to get his Hot Mess back.

Flick.

He can see blue and red flashing lights moving towards the base of the building.

He can hear a huffing and puffing that gets gradually closer. Then the uniformed bellhop from inside appears. “Please man, you gotta get rid of these snakes, it’s a nightmare!”

“Tell me about it dude! Look at my shoe, it’s friggin’ ruined.”

Melkor holds up his leg and shows off the bloody heel of his white sneaker.

The guy looks down at his shoe, trying to figure out if there are secretly like a hundred snakes on it. There are not. He looks back up at Melkor. “Yeah. Yeah, it sucks about your shoe man. But please. Please get rid of the snakes downstairs.”

“Listen, there’s a lesson in all this for you man. What’s your name kid? Is it Feanor?”

“N-n-no, nope. My name is James.” He lifts up the name tag on his chest, angling it towards Melkor.

“Well Jamie, I know I might seem cool enough to solve your problems for you. But in fact, I’m much cooler than that.”

He puts a hand on the guy’s shoulder and looks him in the eye. “I would never rob you of such a valuable chance to prove your mettle against a writhing mass of deadly snakes.”

“I - um - what? I really don’t think that’s a good idea-”

“Alright kid, let’s do the pill thing.” He holds out a red pill and a blue pill, but actually they’re both just diamonds with some food coloring on them.

”You can either fight these snakes by turning into 40 duck-sized horses…” he wiggles the red pill suggestively, “or one horse-sized mongoose,” and he shakes the blue pill.

As Jamie sputters, there is another clattering of footsteps on the stairs, and a plainclothes police officer appears, gun drawn. “Detective Rudolph, CPD,” he shouts, pointing his gun alternately at Melkor and James, “which one of you scumbags loosed the snakes on the Skydeck?”

Melkor throws his hands up over his head. “Thank Christ our Lord you’re here Rudolph! This maniac said he was gonna go through some kinda manhood ritual where he turns into a lion-tiger-bear thing and fights an elevator full of snakes to the death! Was really chewing’ my ear off about the OH GOD — “

James’ dandy bellhop uniform bursts into shreds as he suddenly transforms into a horse-sized mongoose.

In Glasgow, Scotland, several serious looking men and women wearing grey cloaks and swords are sitting around in various degrees of alertness. A bell rings. “We have a hit on Dresden’s tracking setup!” one woman announces, leaning over a map on a table. “Willis tower. Transmogrification. Could be our warlock. Morgan, you take-” but one of the men has already jumped up and run out the door. 

“Morgan, wait! Damnit,” the woman sighs, before turning back to the others. “Ramirez, Yoshimo, go after him. Chandler, get ahold of Dresden and make sure he knows there’ll be Wardens coming down on his city.”

Rudolph’s gun swings definitively towards the giant mongoose. “What the FUCK?” He screams, stumbling backwards. “Is this another bullshit loop garoo trick? Stay the fuck away from me!”

Melkor briefly considers swinging up onto James Mongoose’s back and riding into battle against the snakey horde. A wave of wooziness passes over him from the snakebite he already got, and that ambition is swept from his mind.

He sits down criss-cross applesauce on the roof. “Ima just take a breather, maybe do a line. I got a long night ahead of me. You got this Rudolph.”

Rudolph shoots Jamie the Mongoose.

Or rather, shoots at it - his shot goes wide, and J. Mongoose, enraged, charges him, shoulders him aside, and barrels down the stairs in the direction of the snake infested Skydeck.

Melkor pulls out a little baggie of white powder, a sparkly pink compact mirror, and a 2 dollar bill. 

“So ‘Detective,’ huh? Not too shabby. Is that mostly just paying your dues? Having friends in high places? Reading all 127 Boxcar Children books?”

Rudolph staggers upright and points his gun vaguely in Melkor’s direction. “Who the fuck are you? Identify yourself! Hands where I can see ‘em!”

“Jesus dude, watch the video.” He pours out a line of coke onto the mirror, as foretold in prophecy, and rolls up his faded green Jefferson.

“What-” Rudolph takes a deep breath and steadies himself. “We’re gonna sort this out back at the precinct after I go take care of that… bear… that you somehow smuggled up here, dipshit. You’re under arrest. Hands behind your head with fingers interlaced, I’m sure you know the drill.”

“Oh I know all about the drill. Remind me to tell you about Angainor sometime… maybe after I’ve chained you to the top of that antenna and cursed you and your family to misery and hopelessness.”

Melkor snorts his line while the snorting’s good.

Rudolph doesn’t quite know what to do with this challenge to his authority that doesn’t quite seem like it could be plausibly described as a threat on his life. He practically vibrates with tension. Then he remembers. He pulls a taser out of a holster on his belt and fires it at Melkor.

The two flying darts stick into Melkor’s chest. Electricity arcs between them through his skin and his muscles, which smoke and spasm respectively.

The searing/shocking/burning grips Melkor’s torso like a pissed-off balrog bookie here to collect on payment overdue. His back muscles sit him up ramrod straight, and he gets that rabid jaws-and-fists-clenched look. The sparkly pink compact mirror gets flung free of the electrocution and shatters.

When the current cuts out, Melkor slumps to one side, feeling all roasty toasty.

Fuuuuuuu…

Cautiously, Rudolph approaches him, his gun still drawn, cuffs in his other hand. “Like I said, asshat, you’re under arrest.”