It was painted mint green and had those ugly yellow, solar powered lights along the path to the door, but Dean had to admit that Jennifer Tierney had a pretty nice place. The house had three bedrooms plus a den, and even though it was covered for the off season, he imagined that the in-ground pool was the site of quite a few parties in the summer time. The rooms were loaded with secondhand IKEA furniture, giving the house an atmosphere of faux sophistication. He usually found that kind of stuff pretentious, but somehow she had made the concept charming in an earnest, hopeful sort of way.

Cut down in the prime of life, he thought, shaking his head as he combed through her kitchen drawers. Damn shame.

He suddenly wished he'd had the chance to meet her before she died. By all accounts, she was one of the friendliest – and hottest – people anyone they'd talked to had ever met, and was a hell of hostess. His stomach clenched as he thought of how her face looked now as she lay in the morgue on that stainless steel table, staring up at the fluorescent lights through sightless eyes. Lord knew they'd seen more dead bodies in their lifetimes than most doctors ever would, but he's been struck by how much like Sam she'd looked.

Gray.

Cold.

Still.

He slammed the kitchen drawer, trudging up the narrow staircase. The house wasn't revealing much, and his mind was wandering to places he'd rather it didn't.

Sam is back. It worked.

When he woke in the middle of the night, terrified it had all been a dream and expecting to find Bobby waiting in the next room and Sam still laid out like a side of beef, that was what he needed to remember. The kid had been dead and rotting on the floor of a cabin for a day or two, but he was back now. They were together, a family again, and that was what mattered.

At least until-

Something gleaming in the corner of the room interrupted his thoughts and he headed over, moving a jewelry box aside. He frowned, picking it up and turning it over in his hands.

It was a small piece of glass. From a mirror.

Dean turned back to Jennifer's dresser. There was no mirror there.

"Well, well," he said aloud, looking around for more glass. "Somebody got sloppy."

He didn't find any more pieces.

Banshee's got a sidekick, he reasoned. Someone to clean up the mess. But who…and why?

There was nothing else out of the ordinary in the house, and after a second sweep, he headed outside to see if Sam had found anything. Dean spotted him on the side of the house near the front gate and was about to call out when he saw her, leaning against the wooden fence.

She was beautiful, thin as a rail, with hair so blond it was almost white. Her eyes were light, too, and as hard as he tried, he couldn't get a lock on their color. Her face was perfect in almost every way, but something about it was…off.

The pieces of it didn't quite fit together, it seemed to Dean; her eyes were simultaneously too big and too small, her nose seemed to change shape with the angle of her head, and her mouth seemed to extend past the edges of her face. She was like a dream image, molding and changing like a chameleon in response to something.

What the hell is she?

"…nice girl, but a little vacant in the head," she was saying. Sam was watching her and smiling, matching her movements. God damn it, Sam, he thought, pressing his body against the house so he wouldn't be seen.

"Yeah, her mom said something similar," Sam told her. "We talked to the other vics families, too, and you wouldn't believe some of the tidbits we picked up."

Dean could tell she was more interested in that information than she let on.

"Is that so? Care to share?"

Sam laughed, and Dean rolled his eyes. A pretty face and a blonde dye job, and you're just locked and loaded, eh, Sammy?

"It's confidential," he said. "Bureau regulations."

She leaned in, and Dean's hand moved toward his gun. She was whispering.

Shit. What was she saying?

Dean squinted at them, as though that would help him hear better, and noticed Sam's posture change. He's been standing straight and tall before, but now he began to waver on his feet, swaying in her direction. His knees buckled and he fell forward into the frosted crabgrass.

Dean pulled his gun, moving quickly toward them.

"Hey!" he called. Her head snapped up, and for a second Dean thought he saw something ugly cross her features. Then it – and the chameleon quality her features had had before – was gone, and she was just a frightened girl, backing away from him.

"Don't shoot!" She tripped as she backed away, falling onto her ass and scooting away from him.

"Stay down!"

He kept the gun pointed at her, kneeling next to Sam, who had regained some balance and was breathing in gasps, his hand resting on the fence for support.

Dean grabbed him by the shoulder. "Hey! Hey, man. Stay with me. You all right?"

Sam groaned, rubbing his forehead. "What happened?"

"Your little girlfriend zapped you with something," he said, his tone accusatory. He risked another glance over at her. She was still sitting there, her eyes trained on his gun.

Sam shook his head and looked at her. "Merida? What's going on?"

"Yeah, Merida," Dean spat. "Don't be shy."

She pressed her lips together. "It's not what you think."

Dean scoffed. "Yeah, I'll bet."

She tried to move and Dean raised his gun until it was level with her head. "Don't even think about it, Goldilocks."

Sam got slowly to his feet, still unsteady. "Who are you?"

"I already told you," she said, cocking her head. "Caleb."

"What did you do to me?" Sam swayed on his feet, grabbing the fence for support. "Why am I so dizzy?"

"It'll wear off, Sam Winchester."

Dean stepped toward her and she backed further away. "How do you know who we are, bitch?"

Her lips parted in a razor smile. "It's good to meet you too, Dean. I didn't think we'd get the chance before…well."

Sam's breath left his chest with a huff. "What do you know about that? What do you want with me?"

"Believe it or not, I was trying to help you."

"Help him what? Take a power nap?"

"Put the gun down, and maybe we can talk."

"Fuck you."

She clicked her teeth. "Potty mouth. Didn't your mother ever teach you not to speak that way to a lady?"

"Hey!"

The three of them turned their heads as a man with a large dog stopped on the sidewalk in front of the house. "You leave her alone!"

"It's okay, sir," Dean said, holstering his gun and pulling out his FBI badge. "Federal agents."

"I don't care if you're the goddam president!" he said, pulling out his cell phone. "I'm calling the cops."

"There's no need for alarm, sir," Sam said, walking toward the man with his arms outstretched. "Please, just-"

A rock flew past his head and struck the man in the temple. He fell to the ground, unconscious.

Merida laughed, moving between them with spider-like grace.

"I knew softball would pay off one day," she mused. She winked. "See you soon, Sammy."

The air around her shimmered and she disappeared, leaving them standing there.

They sped away from the scene, pulling onto the state highway just as the police arrived in front of Jennifer Tierney's house.

"Shit." Dean hit the gas. "Guess the call went through, after all."

"Wouldn't have mattered," Sam pointed out, rubbing his temples. Black spots still floated in front of him, though not as many as before. "We're made."

"Yeah, I know." He took one hand off the steering wheel and touched Sam's face; there was a small black mark on his left cheek. He tried to rub it away, but it wouldn't budge. "You okay?"

Sam swatted his hand away. "I'm fine."

"Then what's that?"

"What?"

Dean pulled his mirror down and Sam looked into it, spotting the black mark and rubbing at it. It looked like a smudge of soot, but he couldn't dust it away. "What the hell?"

"What was she saying to you, Sam? Before you hit the floor. I couldn't hear."

Sam frowned, trying to remember. "I don't remember," he said. "She was whispering something…like a song…but I don't know what it was."

"She marked you," Dean said, turning onto another highway. "And that ain't no tattoo."

Sam shook his head. "I can't believe I was such an idiot."

"Stop it. It's done, now we deal with it. Where did you meet this…thing?"

"It was after you went to Corrina to check out the bodies. I was…taking a break, looking at the river, and she just kind of walked up to me."

"What did she say?"

"She started talking about the case," Sam muttered, averting his eyes. "Told me about the McLaughlins…"

"So she just volunteered this info, no quid pro quo?"

"Yeah. And later, when we met for lunch…"

Dean chuckled darkly.

"I'm sorry, okay? I didn't know."

"Didn't you see her face, man? That didn't clue you in?"

"What about it?"

"You know. The eyes, the shifty nose, the giant mouth."

Sam stared at him.

"Look, I know you were pitching a tent for her, but even you can't have missed…"

He trailed off as he realized Sam hadn't seen anything.

What the hell does that mean?

"Never mind. She was feeding you facts about these McLaughlins, which means she knows why we're here. She's some kind of monster. She's gotta be involved somehow."

"How? Banshees aren't human, Dean. They don't shimmer like desert mirages, and they don't throw rocks at people."

"There's the human fingernails to think about."

"Is Merida human, dude?"

"Fair point."

"I just feel like there's some huge piece we're not seeing. It's like, I can almost see how all of this fits together, but not quite, you know?"

"Not really. The whole thing is straight out of Rose Red, if you ask me."

Sam looked into the mirror again, rubbing at the smudge.

"And the plot thickens," Dean said.

"What do you mean?"

"The house. In the bedroom where Jennifer was found, there was a broken mirror. But here's the thing – someone cleaned it up. They left a piece – that's how I know there was one there – but whoever it was went all out to make sure the police didn't see it."

"Mirrors," Sam said, folding up the one above his head. "Well. There's a lot of lore that says mirrors can show people's true selves, trap spirits, yadda yadda. Could be the monster can't deal with them. But was there anything on banshees and mirrors?"

"Bobby didn't mention anything."

"So who got rid of it? Merida? Why?"

Dean turned into the motel parking lot and swung into the space in front of their room. "I got no idea. But we'd better find out. She did something to you, Sam. And I'm willing to bet it's bad for your health."

They kept an eye out as they unlocked the motel room door, but nobody had followed them, and no one was outside. They slipped into the room and closed the door.

"'Bout time you two idjits showed up." Bobby was sitting at the small kitchen table, eating a pot pie. "Had me thinking she'd already taken you, Sam."

"When did you get here?" Dean tossed his pack onto the bed and headed into the kitchen, Sam following close behind. "I thought you had a thing in Memphis?"

"The Memphis thing can wait," he said. "We got bigger fish to fry."

Sam sat down. "You know what she is?"

"You betcha. And you're gonna love this one."