The next morning, before they split up, Jenkins had more history to impart.
A leather-bound codex, which he’d retrieved from the archives, lay open on his desk as he addressed Cassandra and the others. Bridget had been dispatched via Uber back to her hotel room in the city with the promise that the Librarians would be in touch shortly, once they formulated their plan of action regarding her situation. Cassandra hoped the banshee would leave Bridget alone until they could get their act together. She knew what it was like to wait helplessly for death to arrive, never really knowing when the Grim Reaper was scheduled to drop by. That had been Cassandra’s life, too, for far too many years.
“What do you have for us, Jenkins?” Baird asked.
“Background, Colonel.” He looked up from the dusty tome, which he had handled carefully, using blue latex gloves. “Thankfully, I managed to locate the appropriate annals without too much difficulty and, having reviewed them, now possess a somewhat fuller picture of what transpired in Ireland nearly sixteen hundred years ago.”
“Good work,” Baird said. “Let us have it.”
“By all means,” he said. “Quite an intriguing account, actually.”
Cassandra listened intently as, with his characteristic gravity, Jenkins explained how way back in 441 A.D., a Librarian named Erasmus, along with his Guardian and the future Saint Patrick, had stopped the Serpent Brotherhood from making off with a leprechaun’s pot of gold and sacrificing a defenseless baby. The confrontation, which had indeed taken place on Croagh Patrick, had apparently ended in the defeat of the Brotherhood—and the decapitation of their leader, a certain Lady Sibella.
“Whoa. They chopped off her head?” Ezekiel reacted. “Guess those old-school Guardians didn’t mess around.”
“It was a simpler time,” Jenkins replied with a hint of nostalgia in his voice. A former knight of the Round Table, he had probably beheaded a few miscreants in his time. Or so Cassandra assumed.
“‘The bones of the foul serpent,’” Stone said, referencing the inscription on the vandalized monolith. “The grave of this Sibella woman?”
“Possibly,” Jenkins said. “The site on the island was just across the bay from the mountain. Lady Sibella’s remains could have been easily transported there by boat.”
“And buried in the middle of nowhere,” Baird said, “away from any ley lines.”
“But why would the modern-day Serpent Brotherhood want Sibella’s bones anyway?” Cassandra asked.
“That remains to be determined,” Jenkins said, “although, knowing the Brotherhood, I doubt that it was simply to rebury the remains with honors elsewhere. We must assume some darker purpose.”
“Maybe there was something buried with her?” Stone speculated.
“Forget the bones,” Ezekiel said, adding somewhat predictably, “what happened to the pot of gold?”
“Alas, the fate of the pot has been lost to history, along with the name of the leprechaun who absconded with both the gold and the anonymous infant.”
Cassandra shuddered when she recalled what, according to the records, had nearly happened to the baby. Sacrificing an innocent child was vicious even for the Serpent Brotherhood.
“About that baby,” she said. “Do we have any idea who she was or what happened to her afterward?”
“I’m afraid not,” Jenkins said, “although she is surely dust by now, unlike the leprechaun, who may well still be roaming the earth and thus able to provide some firsthand insights into this matter … provided we can determine his identity and current address.” He gently closed the tome on his desk. “I do have contacts among the Fair Folk who might be able to assist us in our inquiries, so perhaps a brief fact-finding expedition may be in order.”
Cassandra’s ears perked up. “You’re going back to Ireland? To meet with some actual leprechauns?”
“No need to go all the way to the Emerald Isle,” Jenkins replied. “As it happens, there’s a thriving leprechaun colony right here in Portland.”
“You’re kidding me,” Stone said. “Portland, Oregon, has leprechauns?”
“You didn’t know that?” Jenkins appeared bemused. “I thought that was common knowledge.”
Cassandra couldn’t tell whether he was pulling Stone’s leg or not. Jenkins’s sense of humor could be dryer than the Kalahari sometimes.
“Can I go with?” she asked. “I’ve never been to a leprechaun colony, which seems a shame given that I’m Irish-American and all.”
He regarded her curiously. “To explore your ancestral roots?”
“Something like that,” she said.
To tell the truth, she was still bothered by how little she apparently knew about where her family came from, generations ago. She had never given her Irish heritage much thought before, perhaps because she had always been more fixated on her terminal lack of a future. But now that she had a tomorrow, maybe she finally had time to look backward—and get in touch with her Irish ancestry?
“Far be it from me to discourage such a worthy endeavor,” Jenkins said. “I would be grateful for your company.”
“Count me in, too,” Ezekiel said. “I’m not Irish, but I’m up for visiting the local leprechauns … just to be neighborly.”
“And help yourself to their gold?” Jenkins scoffed at the notion. “Please credit me with a little common sense. Mixing a trickster-thief such as yourself with an enclave of Little People is just asking for trouble.” He shook his head. “Might I suggest that you join Mister Stone and Colonel Baird in hunting for the banshee instead, while Miss Cillian and I pursue this other avenue of investigation?”
Ezekiel frowned. “Hold on. How come Cassandra got a green light?”
“So you weren’t thinking about the leprechauns’ gold?” Stone asked. “At all?”
“Well, maybe a little,” Ezekiel admitted, “but—”
“Give it up, Jones,” Baird said decisively. “You’re the one who suggested that we split up to cover more ground, and I’m going to let Jenkins make this call, since these are his contacts.” Baird held up a hand to silence any further objections. “You’re coming with Stone and me, so I can keep an eye on you … for everybody’s sake.”
“Thank you, Colonel,” Jenkins said. “The Little People are not to be trifled with … or pilfered from.”
“Just find out what you can,” Baird said. “I want to know what old business we might be dealing with here.”
“You and me both, Colonel.”