Chicago
The Pot O’ Gold was a traditional Irish pub in downtown Chicago. Numerous bottles of spirits were stacked neatly in front of a long, frosted mirror across from a polished mahogany bar. Brass taps gleamed beneath hanging lamps with translucent green shades. Framed newspaper clippings, celebrating various World Cup victories, adorned the wood-paneled walls, along with autographed photos of minor celebrities. A list of appetizers was scrawled on a chalkboard propped up behind the door, while empty stools, chairs, and booths awaited thirsty patrons. It was early morning, so the pub wasn’t open for business yet, but Baird got a positive vibe from the place. It struck her as the sort of authentic neighborhood watering hole that she wouldn’t have minded frequenting even if she weren’t investigating an alleged banshee haunting.
“Nice place,” she said.
“Thanks,” Bridget said. “It’s been in my family for generations now, ever since my great-granddad came over from the Old Country. Family legend has it that some lucky gold coins, bestowed on my ancestors by a friendly leprechaun, provided the funds to launch the pub back in the day.”
The Magic Door had deposited the Librarians and their new “client” at the pub by way of the tavern’s rear entrance. Baird had momentarily balked at revealing the Door’s existence to a civilian, but had concluded that the whole magic Library thing was pretty much out of the bag already, so it hadn’t been worth wasting several hours flying from Portland to Chicago just to avoid showing the Door to Bridget, who, to her credit, had been merely reasonably flabbergasted as she’d stepped through the magical shortcut.
“A leprechaun?” Baird echoed.
“Gold?” Ezekiel said almost simultaneously.
Stone shot Baird a look, obviously making the same connection she had. The Serpent Brotherhood had been after a leprechaun’s gold way back in the fifth century. No way was this a coincidence.
“That’s right,” Bridget replied. “In fact, the last of the original coins is supposedly on display right here.”
She called their attention to a single gold coin embedded in the top of the bar beneath a thick sheet of glass. A plaque provided the inspiration for the pub’s name:
“Actual gold coin straight from a leprechaun’s Pot O’ Gold.”
“To tell the truth,” Bridget said, “I’d always figured the story behind the coin to be pure blarney, but then, when the medical bills started piling up, threatening to bankrupt both me and the pub, several more gold coins showed up on the bar one morning, right out of the blue.”
“And you have no idea where the coins came from?” Baird asked.
“Not a clue.” Bridget dusted off the glass with a rag. “But I can tell you this: I would have almost surely lost the pub if that gold hadn’t shown up when it did, so who knows? Maybe there is a leprechaun looking out for me … along with a banshee foretelling my doom.”
“About that,” Baird said. “What’s the timing there? What came first, the gold or the banshee?”
Bridget thought about it. “Now that you mention it, the banshee thing started not long after I cashed in the gold coins to pay my hospital bills. Do you think there’s a connection?”
“Follow the money,” Baird said, speaking from experience. “Maybe spending the coins attracted the banshee somehow, not unlike the way I used to track laundered money back to black-market arms dealers and terrorists.”
“Right!” Ezekiel said. “Or the way that marked bills can get you in trouble when you finally try spending them. Not that this ever happened to me, mind you.”
“Uh-huh,” Stone said skeptically.
An odd thought occurred to Baird. “So where do leprechauns get their gold in the first place?”
She expected Stone to answer, but Bridget spoke up first.
“Nobody really knows. There are lots of conflicting stories and legends. Some say the gold is stolen from Viking hoards buried beneath the earth. Others say they earn the money as cobblers, making and repairing shoes for the other fairies, who wear theirs out by dancing, or that they earn it as fiddlers, playing for the revels of fairy kings and queens. And some say the gold comes from long-forgotten mines and treasure troves dating all the way back to the misty days of legend, when ancient gods and goddesses reigned over Ireland.”
Ezekiel eyed her suspiciously. “You seem to know an awful lot about this stuff.”
“I own a pub called the Pot O’ Gold,” she pointed out, “and I’m being haunted by a banshee. So, yeah, I’m up on my Irish folklore.”
“Okay,” he conceded. “Fair dinkum.”
Baird considered the gold coin and Bridget’s story. Leprechauns and their pots of gold were apparently a real thing, so she had no reason to doubt any of this, even if the connection to the banshee—and the Serpent Brotherhood—remained fuzzy. She turned to her team for answers.
“Okay, Librarians. Put those big brains of yours to work. What’s to be learned here?”
Stone inspected the coin through the protective glass.
“Not quite sure what to make of this,” he admitted. “Conventional wisdom is that the Irish didn’t start striking their own coinage until the Normans showed up in the twelfth century, well after that business with the Serpent Brotherhood back in Saint Patrick’s time. Whatever coins made it to Ireland before then would have been Greek or Roman or British or Viking, depending, and valued more for their precious metal than for their monetary value, but the design on this coin is unmistakably Celtic.”
The face of the coin boasted an embossed portrait of a bearded god or king whose crown sported the interlocking spirals associated with traditional Celtic art. Twin braids hung from the icon’s bushy beard, while his raised hands held smaller, mortal figures aloft. Mythical beasts of some sort capered along the circumference of the coin. Baird examined the portrait as she might have a mug shot.
“Any idea who that’s supposed to be?”
“Possibly one of the Tuatha Dé Danann?” Stone said. “That would be my best guess, although I’m going to want to look it up to be sure.”
Baird recalled that the Tuatha Dé Danann were the gods of pagan Ireland. “Maybe Jenkins can help out with that,” she suggested. “Heck, he may have seen plenty of coins like this back in his Round Table days. Probably used them to pay for lunch during the Dark Ages.”
“Not like this,” Stone said. “This is a rarity … if it’s for real.”
“Only one way to find out.” Ezekiel unclipped a handheld magic detector from his belt. “Good thing I came prepared.”
Easing Stone aside, he scanned the coin with the gadget. Baird peered over his shoulder as the digital display started ticking upward into the green zone. It beeped as loudly as a Geiger counter.
“And we have a winner,” Ezekiel said. “That coin is definitely giving off some serious magical emanations.”
Baird nodded. “Which means it really could have come straight from a leprechaun’s pot.”
But what did that have to do with the banshee?