Chicago
The Pot O’ Gold was packed. It seemed that not even the disturbances of the past few days could keep Chicagoans away from an Irish pub on Saint Patrick’s Day. Festive folk, dead-set on getting their Irish on, crammed into the pub, which had been spruced up just in time for the holiday. Green was the color du jour, proudly displayed via sweaters, bandannas, feather boas, plastic bowler hats, novelty eyeglass frames, tiaras, wigs, sequins, and beads, while green beer flowed as freely as the Chicago River, which had also been dyed for the occasion. Cassandra, who was visiting the pub for the first time, saw why Bridget couldn’t afford to close her doors today, no matter the various menaces stalking her. Not opening on Saint Patrick’s Day would be akin to, well, throwing away a pot of gold.
Good for her, Cassandra thought. I know all about getting on with life despite a threat hanging over your head.
Bogus leprechauns, sporting fake red beards, store-bought costumes, and exaggerated “Oirish” accents, mingled with the other customers, but Cassandra had yet to spot anything resembling the real thing from her stool at the bar. The four-leaf clover she’d found in Otherworld was threaded through a buttonhole in her warm woolen sweater. Green leggings and a glass of emerald beer kept up appearances as well.
“What’s keeping Grady?” she asked Bridget, who was busy behind the bar, assisted by Brigid, whom they were passing off as a visiting “cousin” from Dublin. Cassandra struggled to keep watch over the giddy crowds streaming in and out of the pub. “Has he showed up yet? Did I miss him?”
It didn’t help that, unlike the other Librarians, she hadn’t met Grady yet.
“No sign of him,” Bridget said, a puzzled look on her face. “I don’t understand it. I can’t imagine he’d skip today of all days.”
Unless, Cassandra fretted, he’d been scared off by the banshee or the Brotherhood, or both. She hoped that she and the others were not wasting their time staking out the pub, waiting for somebody who had already made himself scarce. What if O’Gradaigh—if that’s who Grady truly was—dropped out of sight for another fifteen-hundred-plus years?
The rest of the team was positioned strategically throughout the pub, ready for anything, or so they hoped. Like Cassandra, they’d dressed to blend in with the crowd. Baird was sporting a green turtleneck sweater and a shamrock tattoo on her cheek, Stone had on a green flannel shirt and a miniature bowler hat, while Ezekiel was cheekily flaunting an oversized “Kiss Me, I’m Irish!” button. Bridget’s gold coin, which Max had already made a play for, remained safely tucked away in the Annex under Jenkins’s watchful eye. None of the rowdy pub-crawlers appeared to notice its absence.
“Och,” Brigid said as she served up another pitcher of green beer. She couldn’t operate a modern cash register, but she could pour and serve drinks with the best of them. With her long hair tied up in the back, she resembled her double more than ever. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand. “And here I thought the Fair Folk knew how to make merry!”
“Love your accent!” a tipsy celebrant enthused. “Is it for real?”
Cassandra chuckled. You have no idea, she thought.
Amused by the exchange, she almost missed it when a grizzled old fellow sat down at the bar a few seats away, a well-worn fiddle tucked under his arm. He tipped his paddy cap at the redhead tending the bar.
“Forgive me tardiness, me fine girl. ’Tis packed the streets and sidewalks are. A soul can barely make one’s way through the crush and all.”
“Och,” Brigid said. “I think ye’ve mistaken me for me cousin.”
“Cousin?” The fiddler’s eyes bulged. Confusion gave way to what looked like genuine consternation on his weathered features. “Nay, it cannot be.…”
“Me name is Brigid,” she said, “and I’m pleased to meet ye.”
“Bridget and Brigid?” A frown deepened the creases on his face. “Is this a trick ye’re playing on me?”
His perturbed reaction caught the actual Bridget’s attention.
“That’s him!” She reached across the bar to nudge Cassandra, and whispered as she walked over to Grady, “Talking to Brigid!”
Grady?
Cassandra placed her hand over the magic four-leaf clover and closed her eyes for a moment. Reopening them, she gasped as the seemingly ordinary fiddler rippled like a mirage—or a faerie glamour dissolving. All at once, “Grady” was replaced by an honest-to-goodness leprechaun straight out of the storybooks, dressed entirely in green, from his cocked hat to his breeches. A bushy red beard spouted from nowhere, while Grady lost at least three feet in height perched atop his barstool. His fiddle shrank in size as well. Brass buckles gleamed upon his shoes.
Leprechaun in the house, Cassandra thought. I call that a positive ID.
She signaled the others by raising her glass and loudly toasting in a prearranged code word.
“Slainte!”
Nearby revelers joined in the toast, so the rest of the team couldn’t possibly miss it. Baird and the guys began to quietly converge on Grady, squeezing their way across the crowded pub. Cassandra hopped off her stool and approached Grady, who was too preoccupied by the twin Bs to notice. The leprechaun looked anxiously back and forth between the two women, trying to make sense of it. More than just puzzled, he appeared genuinely distressed. He shook his head unhappily.
“Both of youse in one place? Sure, this can’t be happening.…”
Bridget played it cool. “About time you got here, you old rapscallion. Let me guess—you want a wee nip before playing?” She stalled until Cassandra could join them. “Say, have you met my friend Cassandra? I was telling her all about you.”
“Is that so?” The leprechaun turned toward Cassandra, then froze at the sight of the genuine four-leaf clover on her sweater. Their eyes met and a flicker of alarm crossed his face, as though he could see his true reflection in her eyes. He swallowed hard. “Pleased to meet ye, miss, but I must be going—”
Cassandra grabbed him by the wrist. “Finbar O’Gradaigh, I presume?”
The leprechaun tried to tug his arm free, but she’d caught him fair and square. She kept her gazed fixed on him while waiting for the rest of the team to make it to the bar. The general hullabaloo of the pub drowned out Grady’s protests.
“Unhand me, ye cunning jezebel!”
“Not until we find out what’s so special about your pot of gold, and why the Serpent Brotherhood wants it so much.”
His ruddy face went pale. “Ye don’t know what ye’re asking!”
“Explain it to me then. What are you so afraid of?”
Before he could answer, a mournful cry rang out across the pub. Cassandra turned to see a middle-aged, rather matronly woman emerge from the crowd, which nervously parted to let her through. Hints of white infiltrated her dark brown hair. A tattered gray shawl was draped over her shoulders. Her mouth hung open as she wailed in anguish. Her eyes were red from weeping. Tears stained her cheeks. She wrung her hands as the other customers stared at her in shock and confusion. A few crossed themselves.
“No, no,” Bridget murmured, clutching her chest. “Not tonight, not now—”
“The bean-sidhe!” Brigid said. “She’s come, just as ye said—but for whom?”
Understandably distracted by the banshee, Cassandra lost her grip on the leprechaun, who slipped free and bounded off the barstool onto the floor. Nobody else noticed the sprite making his escape, and Cassandra reminded herself that she was the only one who could see past the glamour disguising the leprechaun. Everyone else still saw only a rumpled old fiddler.
A leprechaun and a banshee, she marveled, on Saint Patrick’s Day no less! Talk about getting in touch with my Irish roots!
Cassandra hesitated, torn between pursuing Grady and shielding Bridget from the banshee. According to Jenkins, a banshee only warned of impending doom; she didn’t actually attack people. But could the ominous specter scare Bridget to death if it got too close, what with her weak heart and all?
Cassandra’s own pulse was certainly racing.
The banshee approached the bar. Her woeful gaze swept back and forth between Bridget and Brigid, as though momentarily confused as to whom she was haunting. Her keening acquired a quizzical note; you could practically hear the question mark.
“Keep away from them!” The leprechaun bounced onto the bar between the banshee and her targets. Wide eyes and startled gasps came from the other customers as Cassandra realized that he had just revealed his true form to the banshee—and everyone else. The little man shook his tiny fist defiantly. “’Tis meself ye’ve been searching for, isn’t it? All these many years?”
The banshee threw back her head and wailed at the top of her lungs. Unclasping her hands, she pointed an accusing finger at O’Gradaigh. Glasses and lightbulbs shattered, panicking the other customers. Tables and chairs were knocked over by the frightened crowd, forcing Baird to go to the rescue of a toppled senior citizen who was in danger of being trampled, even as the banshee lunged toward the leprechaun with outstretched arms and grasping claws.
“Uh-uh!” Stone shouted above the keening. “Find your own leprechaun!”
“You tell her!” Ezekiel said. “And tell her to dial down the volume, too!”
Shoving their way through the panicky crowd, the Librarians converged on the banshee from both left and right. They tackled her simultaneously, but she dissolved into a gray mist, causing Stone and Ezekiel to collide instead. They ended up sprawled on the floor, grappling with each other.
“Son of a gun!” Stone growled. “Where she’d go?”
“Don’t ask me!” Ezekiel said. “I’m still trying to figure out where she came from!”
Baird helped the fallen oldster to his feet. “Forget the banshee for now!” she shouted from across the pub. “Grab that leprechaun!”
But Grady had another idea.
“Many thanks for coming to me rescue, lads!” he called to the guys as they clumsily untangled themselves. “Pardon me if I don’t stick around to buy ye a pint or two!”
He dashed down the length of the bar and out the front door.
“Oh, no!” Cassandra said. “You’re not getting away from me! I caught you once and I can catch you again!”
She sprinted out of the pub—into a raucous green madhouse.
Saint Patrick’s Day had taken over downtown Chicago, possibly even more so than inside the pub. One of several parades was progressing down the street, while the sidewalks were overflowing with spectators and merrymakers. Bagpipes and drum corps competed with the general din of the celebration. Mobs of seasonally Irish partyers jostled Cassandra as she suddenly grasped the challenge before her: trying not to lose a leprechaun on Saint Patrick’s Day was like trying to keep track of a zombie on Halloween or a Harley Quinn at a comic-book convention. She checked to make sure her four-leaf clover was secure.
I’m going to need all the luck I can get.
The brisk temperature came as a jolt after the toasty comfort of the pub. Several feet ahead, O’Gradaigh wove through a procession of Irish dancers river-dancing their way through an intersection. Cassandra ran into the street, barely dodging a pungent puddle of lime-green puke, only to be greeted by squealing brakes as a holiday float, crafted to resemble an enormous pot of gold, nearly flattened her. Fake leprechauns and local beauty queens, tossing green beads and foil-wrapped chocolate coins, shouted at her to get out of the way.
“Sorry!” Cassandra yelled back sheepishly. “Excuse me!”
Crossing the street in front of the parade despite the jeers of onlookers, she momentarily lost sight of O’Gradaigh, then spotted him strutting down the sidewalk, heading away from her. She raced forward and, bending low, grabbed him from behind.
“Told you!” she said. “You’re not getting away from me that easily!”
“Hey, you want me, babe, you got me!”
Her prisoner twisted around to reveal the leering face of a different little person, of the strictly mortal variety. His bristly red beard was held on by an elastic band and was about as real as his rubber pointed ears. His breath reeked of whiskey as he puckered up expectantly. “Lay it on me, baby!”
Cassandra yanked back her arms.
“Sorry! Wrong leprechaun!”
“Hey, where you going, Red?” he objected as she pulled away from him. “You know what they say, big things come in small packages!”
Ignoring the disappointed “leprechaun,” she frantically scanned the crowd for the real O’Gradaigh, but was stymied by the overpopulated festivities all around her. It was like trying to find the four-leaf clover in acres of shamrocks all over again!
“Where is he?” Baird asked as the team caught up with her. “Did he get away?”
“I don’t know!” Cassandra shivered in the wintry weather, hugging herself to stay warm. “Maybe.”
“He’s gotta be here somewhere,” Stone said. “He can’t have just disappeared.”
“You mean, like the banshee did?” Ezekiel pointed out.
Cassandra didn’t think O’Gradaigh could just go invisible, at least not while she was wearing her four-leaf clover, but she feared that he had given them the slip the old-fashioned way, aided and abetted by the celebrations in the streets. It occurred to her that, in a sense, the leprechaun had been rescued by Saint Patrick a second time.…
Or had he?
Wailing like a police siren, the banshee reappeared, flying low over the Librarians’ heads. Startled bystanders oohed and aahed and pointed in amazement, evidently thinking that the airborne wraith was part of the parade. Marching horses reared up in fright, almost throwing their riders. A chill passed through Cassandra in the banshee’s wake, along with a sudden revelation.
“She’s after Grady … Finbar … whatever!” With any luck, the relentless specter was on the leprechaun’s trail and could lead them straight to him, if they could just keep up with her. “Follow that banshee!”
* * *
The jig was up, Grady feared.
After years of hiding far from his native land, his worst fear had come to pass: the banshee had found him at last. He should’ve known better than to show his face at the pub again, and indeed had almost chosen to stay well clear of the place tonight, but, in the end, he had not been able to leave sweet Bridget unattended, not while she was beset by evils from his own guilty past.
She’s a fine, brave girl, she is. She shouldn’t have to pay for me crimes.
Had that been the banshee’s intent all along? he wondered. To terrorize Bridget in hopes of flushing him out of hiding? If so, the devious campaign had worked all too well.
He dashed through the teeming streets, feeling like a fox pursued by hounds, even as he tried to make sense of how all his craft and cunning had failed him, bringing him to this sorry pass. No doubt that she-devil, Sibella, would say that sentiment was his undoing in the end, but she’d had no heart, that one. She’d never understand that some ties could stretch across the centuries, all the way to a New World across the ocean.
And what of that other Brigid back at the pub? That was no “cousin,” to be sure; Grady knew full well who that flame-haired beauty was, even though he had not laid eyes on her since she was a wee babe many hundreds of years ago, when he’d filched her from her cradle, leaving a changeling in her place, in order to hide that other child from the Serpents after that close call on the mountain. The real Brigid had been given to the Fair Folk to raise, but when and how she had come to these shores he’d no way of knowing.
And what was she doing in these parts, here and now?
The questions dogged him as he ran for his life, frustrated by the jubilant mobs clogging the city. The ruckus in the streets provided welcome cover, but also impeded his flight to a worrisome degree. His present dwelling was hidden beneath a venerable oak tree in Lincoln Park, but could he reach the park before his various pursuers caught up with him? That was the question, wasn’t it?
A fearsome keening chased after him, proving beyond a doubt that he had not run far or fast enough. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw the banshee, in her guise as a mourning mother, gliding over the heads of mortal merrymakers, with the Librarians in hot pursuit as well. The implacable wraith was gaining on him, her greedy hands reaching out for him. Her pale gray shroud trailed behind her like the tail of a comet, yet another omen of ill fortune. Grady felt an old curse breathing down his neck, reawakened by all the wild new magic at loose in the world. Alas, when he had shared that old gold with Bridget, he had failed to grasp just how powerfully the coins would call out to the banshee now that the ley lines were flowing stronger than they had in centuries.
“Make way!” Grady shouted at the laggards blocking his escape. “Let me through!”
“What’s your hurry, old man?” a drunken lout mocked him. Green face paint and a ridiculous felt hat made a mockery of Erin’s ancient mysteries, prompting Grady to wish that he had brought a shillelagh instead of a fiddle to the pub this night. Cheap beer slopped from the eejit’s bottle as he spied the banshee drawing near. “Whoa, check out the spooky special effects!”
The banshee dipped toward Grady, who feared his goose was as good as cooked, but the spirit’s descent brought her within reach of Cassandra, who sprang upward and grabbed the banshee by the hem of her flowing gown.
“Leave him alone!” the plucky colleen shouted. “I caught him first!”
The banshee shrieked in anger, causing people up and down the block to cover their ears, but Cassandra, who was obviously a Librarian, did not let go of the spirit’s garb even as it yanked her off her feet into the air.
“Yikes!”
The girl weighed down the banshee, who was solid enough when materialized, keeping her from climbing more than a story or so. Howling, the specter glared furiously at Cassandra before vanishing from sight, leaving the Librarian clutching nothing but a wisp of mist. Cassandra screamed, almost as loudly as the banshee had, as she plunged toward the crowded sidewalk below. Grady’s heart quailed at the sight.
Not another paying for me sins!
“Here she comes!” Baird shouted. She and Stone and Ezekiel rushed to catch Cassandra, getting beneath her just in time. A few brave passersby joined in the effort as well, forming a human net to cushion Cassandra’s fall and keep her from striking the pavement. She landed with a muffled thump in the arms of her rescuers, including Baird’s. “Got you!”
Cassandra gasped as she was gently lowered back onto her feet. “Remind me not to hitch a ride on a banshee again!”
“’Cause that situation comes up so often,” Baird joked.
Ezekiel shrugged. “Pretty sure we’re not done with that banshee.”
“I wish!” Stone said. “My ears could use a break—and so could Bridget.”
Grady watched the Librarians warily. Glad as he was to see that Cassandra had survived her reckless tangle with the banshee, the leprechaun knew better than to stick around. While the Librarians and their Guardian paused to assure themselves that Cassandra had only had the breath knocked out of her, Grady took advantage of his reprieve to resume his desperate attempt to evade his pursuers, both mortal and otherwise. The ceaseless crowds made him feel like the fabled Salmon of Knowledge, swimming upstream against the current, so he took off down a narrow alley instead, hoping for a clearer path to safety.
Yet the Librarians proved almost as persistent as the banshee. Marking his dodge, they raced into the alley after him, no more willing to give up their quest than Erasmus and Deidre and the pious Padraic had been so many centuries ago. Grady felt as though history was repeating itself, with himself caught between the Librarians and the Serpent Brotherhood once more, and a vengeful banshee now added to the stew he was boiling in.
“Come back here, Grady!” Baird hollered. “We just want to talk to you!”
Grady couldn’t chance it. The Librarians meant well, no doubt, but they had their own agenda and no idea what was truly at stake. They could not guarantee his safety from either the banshee or the Brotherhood, so he could not risk being detained by them. Running and hiding was what had kept him safe for centuries, ever since he’d stolen that damnable Pot.…
Flight was a fugitive’s sole recourse.
The frantic chase was taking its toll on him, however. He was breathing hard, and a stitch stabbed his side with every step. The mortals’ long legs gave them an unfair advantage as they ate up the distance between them and him. But the end of the alley beckoned, urging him on.
“Leave me be!” he pleaded. “For mercy’s sake!”
“Not a chance!” Stone shouted. “This is all about you somehow … and your Pot!”
Not me Pot, Grady thought. Not at first.
Now was hardly the moment, though, to share that woeful tale, not with all the world closing in on him, or so it seemed. Breaking from the alley just ahead of the Librarians, he looked up and down the sidewalk, weighing his options. To his dismay, the walks appeared nearly as crowded as the parade route. No clear path to freedom presented itself.
If only he could wish himself a wee bit of luck!
An all-too-familiar wail came from above. Looking up in alarm, Grady saw the banshee swooping down at him yet again. Weary of being chased and hunted, the leprechaun briefly flirted with the notion of letting the banshee call the death-coach for him at last. At least he could finally stop looking over his shoulder … and perhaps the banshee would then leave poor Bridget alone?
Suddenly a sleek black limousine pulled up sharply to the curb. A passenger door flew open and a woman with fluorescent-green hair called out to him.
“In here! Hurry!”
Grady hesitated only a moment, all thought of surrender abruptly exorcised by the tantalizing prospect of seeing another morn. Any port in a storm, so they say …
He sprang into the back of the limo, landing on a black leather seat beside his nameless savior, who yanked the door shut behind him. Overhead, the banshee howled in frustration as the vehicle accelerated away from the curb and sped down the street, leaving the malignant specter behind. Grady gasped in relief as her blood-chilling wail receded into the distance.
“Many thanks, miss,” he said. “Ye’re a lifesaver, whoever ye may be. I’m right grateful to—”
His voice broke off as he saw who was sitting opposite them: Max the Serpent and his brutish bodyguard.
“Wait now!” Grady yelled as, too late, he grasped that he had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Scrambling, he groped for the door, only to feel something cold and metallic click shut around his wrist. Silver cuffs bound him as surely as the silver wire Lady Sibella and her minions had twisted about his wrists on a bleak, moonlit night many centuries ago. And this time there would be no Librarian to free him, because they, too, had been left behind—and every moment was taking him farther away from his only hope of rescue.
Where is Saint Patrick now that I need him again?
The limo sped through the night. Grady’s heart sank.
“We meet again, Mister O’Gradaigh.” Max smirked in triumph. “My apologies for not recognizing you earlier, but your glamour fooled even me.”
The woman removed her green wig to reveal hair an equally unnatural shade of pink. “Sorry we have to restrain you,” she apologized, “but you wouldn’t believe how long we’ve been looking for you.”
“And me Pot,” Grady said bitterly.
“But of course,” Max said. “And now you’re going to tell us exactly where you’ve hidden it.”