“How can you help me? Who are you?”

“Oh, I’m very, very old,” the girl said, shaking her blonde curls. “And I’m very, very strong. And I know who took the Cup.”

“How do you know about that?” Lorcan said suspiciously.

She laughed, a tinkling sound that made Lorcan shiver — it brought to his mind images of innocents burned at the stake, babies dashed against walls, mothers raped before their children, wells poisoned and ground sown with salt. “Oh, silly,” the girl said, “I know so much. I know their names, I know their father and mother, I know what protects them, and I know how to hurt them.”

“I have blood from one of them,” Lorcan said, holding up the handkerchief. “I can find them myself.”

She tilted her head and blinked her wide eyes. “And then what? Can you chase them? Can you find them? They run ever so fast. The one my demon wounded has an angel watching over him, and his brother is so strong. And big and mean,” she added with a pout.

“Your demon?” He pointed to the body. “You sent him?”

“Yes. To get the Cup.” She sighed. “Would you have given it to me if asked for it?”

“No,” Lorcan said and swallowed, expecting her to blast him into a million pieces.

Instead, she only laughed. “I know. So I sent my demon. They killed him with their stupid knife and now I have to find another way.”

“So you need my help,” Lorcan said. “You need the help of a mortal.”

“There are places even I can’t go,” she said darkly. “Locks even I can’t break. But you can. You find them for me, and I’ll take the younger brother and you can have the older brother. You can do anything you want to him. You can drink his blood, or peel his skin, or eat his eyes. He has very pretty eyes. You can have him if you promise me I get the Cup when we find them.”

“But why would I want them more than the Cup?” said Lorcan. “With the cup I can live forever.”

She smiled and said confidentially, “I can make you live forever without the Cup.”

“You can?” Lorcan breathed, and then frowned, thinking it over. “That’s all you want? Just the Cup?”

“I want you to find the brothers for me and bring me the Cup. Then I’ll make it so you’ll live forever and ever and ever, in a beautiful castle with your every desire attended to and more power than you can imagine. Promise me,” she said urgently, “promise me you’ll chase and chase them and bring them to me, no matter what.”

Lorcan took a deep breath, and said, “Yes. I’ll do it. I’ll find them.”

“Oh, hooray!” She clapped her hands together. The sound it made contained the cries of a thousand suffering souls. “His name is Dean Winchester.” Her sweet smile turned feral. “And I am going to eat his heart.”

***

In New Mexico, they say Victoria Higgins saw the face of Jesus in her toast.

In Florida, they say William Tully — Billy to his friends — fell five stories at his job as a window washer and got up unscathed.

In North Dakota, they say Katherine Watson, dying in a hospice, said the name of her long-dead husband and reached out her hand just before she died.