Item from The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
Thirty silver coins, each containing a Fallen Angel — pick one up and you gain access to terrifying power and a voice in your head that will spend eternity trying to own your soul.
The Denarian coins — the Blackened Denarii — are thirty silver coins, each one containing the essence of one of the Fallen Angels who followed Lucifer. The coins are old. Some show Roman-era minting. Others are smoother, worn by centuries of handling. Each bears a sigil on one face — the mark of the Fallen sealed within. Touch a coin, and the Fallen makes contact. Pick it up, and the negotiation begins. The Fallen offer power — genuine, terrifying, reality-altering power. Shape-shifting, supernatural strength, magical abilities that eclipse most wizards, healing, flight, and forms that range from monstrous to beautiful. The price is influence. The Fallen whispers, suggests, manipulates. It starts subtly — helpful advice, useful insights — and escalates into full psychic cohabitation. Some hosts and their Fallen reach genuine partnerships. Most become puppets with the illusion of autonomy. A very few — Nicodemus Archleone most notably — maintain dominance through sheer force of will, using their Fallen as a tool rather than being used by it. Giving up a coin voluntarily is nearly impossible. The Fallen makes the power feel necessary, the partnership feel natural, and the alternative feel like death. It can be done — Sanya did it — but it requires a moment of genuine choice, genuine will, that the Fallen works ceaselessly to prevent. The Knights of the Cross exist specifically to create those moments — to fight the Denarians not to kill them, but to offer the hosts a chance to choose differently. Nicodemus leads the Denarians. He has held his coin for nearly two thousand years and shows no signs of relinquishing it. His daughter Deirdre was also a host. Harry once had a shadow of the Fallen Lasciel in his head for years — not from a coin, but from touching one briefly. The shadow called itself Lash. Harry destroyed it. He doesn't like talking about it.
Thirty ancient silver coins, each bearing the sigil of a Fallen Angel. Tarnished, heavy, warm to the touch. Picking one up invites the Fallen in. The coins seem to find their way to vulnerable people. Nearly impossible to give up willingly.
Also known as: the Denarian coins, Blackened Denarii, the coins, the thirty coins