An undisclosed location
Lady Sibella’s skull occupied a position of honor in a glass display case in an elegant penthouse apartment. Carefully cleaned and polished, it sat atop a lightweight aluminum carrying case holding the remainder of the bones exhumed in Ireland. An impressive pair of long, curved fangs enhanced the relic’s death’s-head grin.
Max Lambton admired the fangs. The late Sibella had embodied the Serpent Brotherhood more literally than most. He could respect that.
He ran his tongue over his own flawless white teeth, which were less apropos, but perfect nonetheless. Everything about Max was perfect, from his smoothly shaved cranium, neatly trimmed goatee, and tailored bespoke suit to his impeccably manicured nails, which he absently filed as he contemplated Sibella’s recovered remains. A slender Englishman in his early thirties, of aristocratic mien and bearing, he appreciated the sense of history conveyed by the relic. Lady Sibella may have fallen, as had various other Serpent leaders over the ages, but the Brotherhood continued. He was proud to be carrying on its illustrious traditions by filling the void left by the fall of Dulaque.
My hour has come round at last, he thought. Now he merely needed to cement his position as the future of the Brotherhood, despite the existence of a few rivals also jockeying for the top spot, by scoring a major victory—and defeating the Library once and for all.
But first he had to find a certain pot of gold.
“Is it time?” he asked.
“Almost,” Coral Marsh replied. “We’re ready to go.”
Max turned away from the display case to inspect the preparations. A large map of North America was laid out atop a stylish chrome-and-glass table. A balcony window faced east, awaiting the dawn, if perhaps not as eagerly as Coral.
“Sunrise is scheduled for exactly 7:08,” she reported. Dyed pink hair, the color of cotton candy, tried too hard to display her individuality, at least as far as Max was concerned. Unlike Max, she had hardly dressed for the occasion, having merely thrown on a baggy sweater and jeans that looked as though they had never been ironed. Wire-rim glasses perched upon her nose. Copper earrings, fashioned to resemble coiled serpents, signaled her allegiance to the Brotherhood, as did the silver Ouroboros on Max’s ring finger. A transparent crystal prism, no more than six inches long, dangled from a chain around her neck.
Short and round and overcaffeinated, she was practically percolating with excitement as the critical moment approached. She sipped from one of the noxious energy drinks she seemed to live on. Although it was still early morning, Max guessed that it wasn’t her first. He preferred a strong cup of black coffee himself.
From freshly ground Sumatran beans, of course.
“A shame we have to do this at such an ungodly hour,” he observed, repressing a yawn. He had been up late trading on various precious metal and rare coin exchanges. Until he secured full control of the Brotherhood, he had only limited access to its vast treasuries, forcing him to rely on additional income streams for the time being.
“But it’s the only way,” she insisted, her Midwestern accent marking her as an American. “It has to be the first ray of daylight, or the crack of noon, when the sun is highest in the sky, or the last light of day, or the whole procedure is compromised. It’s not just a matter of simple optics; dawn and noon and dusk have mystic significance that, coupled with the fundamental principles of applied astrological symbolism, is essential to producing the desired effect due to—”
“Yes, yes, I understand all that,” Max interrupted, hoping to head off another lengthy exegesis on the finer points of the magical science involved. Coral’s enthusiasm for her work could be exhausting sometimes. “You’ve explained that before.”
Many times, he added silently.
“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. She shuffled her feet and looked down at the floor. “I guess I’m still psyched that we’re able to pull this off.”
“As well you should be,” he said, giving credit where it was due. “Not everyone could do what you have done: create an all-new magical artifact for our use.”
He was quite sincere in his praise. Most objects of power, such as Aladdin’s Lamp or the Golden Fleece, dated back to antiquity. To forge a new such item, without any history, was a considerable accomplishment indeed.
“Thanks!” she chirped, looking up from the floor. “Although, of course, I couldn’t have done it if the Brotherhood hadn’t reactivated the ley lines a few years ago, and let wild magic back into the world.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, although that had been Dulaque’s doing, prior to his ignominious defeat at the hands of the Librarians. “And that’s only the beginning. Before we’re done, the Library will be ours and no longer able to hide magic away from the world. We’re going to change the world, Coral; and, speaking of which…”
“Right!” She removed the chain holding the crystal prism, which was her most prized possession. She handled the prism carefully to avoid smudging its polished sides. “Here we go.”
The sky was starting to lighten outside, presaging the dawn. Max dimmed the lights in the penthouse and removed a felt-tip marker from his suit pocket. Coral claimed a plastic spray bottle from a counter and misted the air above the map with water taken from a sacred pool in Killarney; as Max understood it, the dispersed water vapor was not essential but helped to facilitate the divination process.
Whatever gets the job done, he thought.
Coral got in place, holding up the crystal between the balcony window and the map table. Despite having witnessed this procedure several times before, Max held his breath until a single ray of sunshine passed through a prism, refracting into a brightly colored rainbow that arced above the table before coming to rest at one specific spot on the map. Marker in hand, Max sprung forward to mark the exact location of the end of the rainbow, where a leprechaun’s pot of gold could be found.
Somewhere in Pennsylvania, he noted.
“Did you get it?” Coral asked. “Did it work?”
“As ever,” he assured her. “Your brilliant creation does not disappoint.”
“Great!” She lowered the prism, even as the enchanted rainbow lost definition and clarity, fading away into the morning light. She rushed over to the map to see where the prism had directed them this time, but couldn’t wait for the answer. “Where are we going?”
Max peered at the map.
“Pittsburgh,” he reported.
“Really?” She sounded slightly disappointed. “I was hoping for Vegas or New Orleans or something.”
“Mission first, tourism later,” he reminded her. “We’re on a quest, not a sightseeing expedition.”
“Of course.” She looked duly chastened. “Eyes on the prize, I understand that.”
“I know you do.”
A private jet waited to take them wherever they needed to go. Max had no doubt that another pot of gold awaited them in Pittsburgh; Coral’s ingenious prism had not steered them wrong yet. And this evening, at dusk, they could apply the prism to a detailed map of the city and thereby zero in even more precisely on the gold’s location.
“But will it be the Pot?” he wondered aloud.
Although the faerie gold they’d plundered so far had helped to finance this current operation, Max was after one particular Pot—the very one that Lady Sibella had tried and failed to obtain more than fifteen hundred years ago.
“There’s no way of telling,” Coral admitted, “but we’re getting closer. I know we are!”
It was Coral, in fact, who had unearthed the full story of Lady Sibella and her plans for the Pot from the Brotherhood’s top-secret archives, and who’d brought that tantalizing intelligence to Max. A first-rate historian and occultist, Coral would have probably made a fine Librarian had she not been recruited by the Brotherhood instead. Max had headhunted her himself.
“No doubt.” He dearly hoped that they would find their ultimate prize in Pittsburgh, but was fully prepared to keep hunting for however long it took, no matter how many leprechauns they had to track down first. They had started in Ireland, naturally, before venturing farther afield. In retrospect, however, they possibly should’ve started searching in America first, given how many of the Irish had immigrated to the New World since the days of Lady Sibella; as Max understood it, there were actually more people of Irish descent in America than there were in Ireland these days, so perhaps that applied to leprechauns as well? Fifteen hundred years was more than time enough for a certain leprechaun to relocate to the States. “Rest assured, we’ll find the right pot eventually.”
“Yes!” Coral enthused, her eyes gleaming behind her spectacles. She carefully hung the precious crystal back around her neck. “And then we’ll finally be able to rid the world of want!”
“Naturally,” he assured his invaluable, if overly idealistic, associate. Max’s own designs were somewhat less humanitarian in nature, but Coral played a vital role in his campaign, at least for the present, so he was not about to disillusion her. “Just as the original Serpent dared humanity to taste the fruit of knowledge, to boldly seize their own destiny, so shall we lead the world into a glorious new age of magic and miracles.”
And power, he amended.
He looked over at Lady Sibella’s fleshless remains. Her fanged skull seemed to grin in anticipation.
Soon, he promised. Very soon.