Author's Note: Follow me on Tumblr ( .com) or early updates to this story and all others. The next day I'll post them here with probably not a small amount of editing. Rated M for future smut.
Santana Lopez is not normal. This is just a fact and it resonates on a deep level with her. Yeah, she had a rough childhood, and an odd adulthood, and she gravitates towards people she shouldn't, and likes people with the 'wrong' type of genitalia… But, more than that, she's odd. She always makes sure to leave the closet door in her bedroom open a crack, and has never had a marshmallow. She's definitely one of the weird ones. She doesn't mind, though. It's what got her her podcast Santana Lopez is Not Normal (broadcasting every weekend evening on the Paranormal Podcast Network), and enough advertising revenue to help pay some of the bills, and her producer and co-host/sidekick. Hell, she even got an intern that year. Things were weird but good.
So, she was weird. That was normal for her. But it didn't quite explain why she, her associate Rachel, and intern Jane, were sitting in front of an eight floor walkup in Queens, in a van that they borrowed from her producer. It didn't really explain how they'd been sitting in front of the building for two hours. Waiting for a certain bow tie wearing bozo to arrive. Or maybe it did, the jury was still out.
Santana sighed and sank lower into the driver's seat. The three of them had been waiting for someone that they weren't sure was coming, but they had to wait on regardless, and waiting for what seemed like hours. Now she was bored. She looked in the vanity mirror. Deep brown eyes stared back at her. Smooth amber skin highlighted by her new favorite blush and almost blue black hair flowed around her shoulders. She didn't bother looking any lower. The chilly night air had made a thick sweatshirt necessary, and no one could really appreciate the curves she'd worked so hard at maintaining in the gym except someone who knew they were already there. She sighed, and flipped the mirror back up with a thud.
This caught the attention of her two companions; Jane shifting uncomfortably in the backseat, and Rachel crossing her arms and huffing loudly.
Rachel reminded Santana of a young Barbra Streisand, though she'd never heard tell of Barbra being unbelievably annoying, so she supposed Rachel had figured that part on her own. It had only been fifteen minutes prior that Santana was asking her to stop practicing her scales in the stuffy vehicle. Well, not exactly asked. Threatened with bodily harm was slightly more accurate.
But if you had asked Santana, Rachel had been steadily ramping up the annoying behavior for the past hour and a half. First it was what could only be described as howling mouth stretches, next she spent about twenty minutes doing something she referred to as 'warming up her diaphragm'. Santana only had to look at Jane in the rearview mirror once to know that the other young woman was dying too, but just didn't feel comfortable enough to say anything.
If Rachel was Barbra, then Jane was Diana Ross. All cool, composed and flawless. Dean Figgins, chair of the communications department at her alma mater, NYU, had called Santana up, charming her with sweet words about how popular her podcast is, and how he listens to it every weekend, and how it's really her responsibility to help, 'foster the creators of tomorrow', or some bologna like that. And three weeks later Jane was knocking on her office door (well, office was a strong word, it was more like the basement of Artie's mom's house). Santana was pissed at first. Royally pissed, actually, but after a few days she had seen the value in having a buffer between herself and Rachel, and Jane could make a mean cup of coffee, so she let her stay on. And today was glad for it, because the intern was the only person keeping her from bounding across the console and strangling her assistant.
Rachel cleared her throat loudly.
Snapping her attention back to the front seat, Santana didn't bother looking over. "What is it, Rachel?"
"Well." Rachel replied, through gritted teeth. "I was just wondering if it was okay for me to talk now."
Santana sighed, gritting her own teeth in return. "You could always talk, Hobbit. I'm just not going to listen to your stupid, off key singing the whole night. If I'm going to be stuck in Artie's van, which is already going to have my hair smelling like Fritos for a week, by the way, I demand that it be in absolute silence. Maybe broken by the faint sounds of a radio."
Rachel had a scandalized look on her face, and could only open and close her mouth a few times like a guppy before taking a deep breath.
"OFF KEY?!"
Santana rolled her eyes and looked back out the window, waiting for the waterfall of words that would soon follow.
She was not disappointed.
"I will have you know that not only do I have absolute pitch, a trait limited to about .01% of the entire human population, but my choir teacher, one, Signore Nuzio Pavarotti, cousin to famed operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti, said, and I quote, "Signorina Berry has one of the top five ear's in the world.", and I assure you that he wasn't talking about the one on the side of my head. Well, technically he was, but his deeper meaning was that-"
"I see him."
Jane's calm voice broke through Rachel's near hysterical one, and she and Santana both looked towards the apartment they were supposed to be watching.
They couldn't have missed him if they wanted to. Blaine Anderson had to be one of the loudest dressers in the city that wasn't a drag queen. He had his dark hair slicked back with hair gel, and his skin, the color of fresh sawdust, stood in sharp contrast to the bright purples and blues that composed the plaid of his button up shirt/vest combo.
They watched him walk towards his door, a spring in his step. Santana didn't have to hear him to know he was singing. That's one thing he and Berry had in common. They both had weird boners for musicals all the time. Santana liked them as well (not that she'd ever tell Rachel that), but at least she wasn't going around singing them like some kind of lunatic.
As he walked up the steps and approached the door, Santana made her move, opening the car door, and slipping onto the street, taking three or four big steps, and then racing up after him. She could hear Jane and Rachel follow suit, albeit more loudly.
Blaine turned at their approach and his eyes grew wide when he saw Santana so close behind him.
She placed a hand over his mouth before he could react.
"Aw, Blaine, not happy to see us?"
Blaine could only muffle his reply.
"Santana, you don't have to scare him half to death." Rachel scolded.
Ignoring Rachel, Santana nodded towards the front door.
"Aren't you going to invite us in?"
Blaine rolled his eyes, and nodded towards the door with his head.
"Good boy. Let's make ourselves comfortable, ladies. Blaine here has got some explaining to do."
\
Brittany Pierce hated waiting. She hated waiting for Halloween. She hated waiting for her birthday. She hated waiting for the little hand to get to the big hand which meant that the ice cream shop near the duck pond was finally open, and she could have some double fudge gelato. She hated it.
Actually, in her life, there were few things that she hated. She normally had a pretty sunny disposition, and her friend Puck used to say that if it were raining, all she had to do was turn her smile towards the sky, and the clouds would clear right away. Puck was like that, always waxing poetical. He was always talking about her hair that's as bright as a sunflower, and her eyes as blue as the sky on a crystal clear day. She smiled at the thought, then turned to the man standing next to her, who was leaned up against a wall. Instead of her cuddly, teddy bear, he was focused hard on the door they were facing, his mouth set in a rough line. His muscles tight and rippling under skin the color of sandpaper and just as rough. His mohawk was bright red today, and he kept running his hands up the sides to make sure it maintained its peak.
She probably would have teased him for it, but it was clear he was nervous, though Brittany wasn't sure why. They'd dealt with this particular 'problem' at least a half a dozen times before. And though they were under strict orders not to kill their target (a directive Brittany had no problem following), it was easy enough to put a good scare into him, and send him running off in another direction.
And that's all they were there to do now. Which is why Brittany didn't get Puck's nervousness.
True, they were sitting in his apartment, which is someplace that they hadn't been before. Brittany dragged her eyes across the darkened room, searching for a moment of distraction that would keep her mind off the waiting. It was late (much later than they thought they'd have to wait for him to arrive), and the lights of the cars from the streets below provided the only illumination in the darkness. The silence of the their little welcome party had only been broken so far by the steady cold wind that whipped through the streets below, and Brittany's aborted attempt to start Row Your Boat sung in a round. His apartment was filled to the brim with stuff. Stack after stack of papers, books, and knick knacks threatened to topple over at any second. Walking over to the nearest stack, she pulled the book off the top. The Case for the Loch Ness Monster. She sighed, turning the book over in her hands, she'd been to Loch Ness long before any of the 'sightings' happened. There was nothing under there but some fish and the occasional old boot.
Placing the book back on the stack she walked to stand beside Tina, who was perched on the arm of a nearby couch. She'd never been that close to Tina, but with Puck about to burst a blood vessel (ironic!), she figured the other woman might prove to be a good distraction. As she walked towards her, Tina looked at Brittany with surprise for a moment, then her eyes narrowed a bit.
Puck liked to call her his "little China doll", which Brittany was pretty sure was racist, because Tina was Korean. Regardless, she had a timeless beauty, and if she weren't so prickly all the time, Brittany could have enjoyed whiling away the hours finding ways to bring a smile to her lips. Or a moan. Whichever.
"What?" Tina said, her voice low and her tone short.
"I'm bored." Whined Brittany, stretching her arms high, and letting them flop down to her sides.
"Then go read a book or something. We're supposed to be waiting on him to show up, not playing on the merry go round."
"There's a merry go round?"
Brittany was joking, but there was no way that Tina would have caught on to that. So, she just turned back to Puck as Tina sighed exasperatedly behind her.
"Puuuuuuck." She moaned, using her fingers to march up his back.
He didn't bother to turn around.
"Britt, this is not the time."
"I don't get it. Why are you two wound up so tight? We've done this a million times."
"Never in his house before, B. And Sue made it clear that she didn't want to hear from him again for a long time. We've got to really scare him good. I don't know why she won't just let us kill him."
Puck's last words were muttered, and full of annoyance.
"What, Puck, you think she's going soft?" Tina's voice was so low it was almost a growl. It was also a little accusatory.
"Sue? No way." Puck said quickly. "I just would rather deal with him once and for all."
"Sue said don't kill him. So we don't." Tina replied with some degree of finality.
That put the kibosh on that conversation, so Brittany turned towards the nearby bookshelf, running her fingers over the pages. She figured Sue had sent Tina along to make sure that she and Puck didn't screw up, not that they needed a babysitter. Brittany had always been able to keep Puck in check, but if Tina wanted to tag along, Brittany was glad for the company.
Her fingers stopped on another book, the title intriguing her. In Search of Stoker's Dracula: The Case for the Proto Vampyre by William M. Schuester. Brittany whispered the name aloud. Pulling the book from the shelf, she opened it up and rifled through the pages. Laughing low to herself, she chose one particular paragraph and turned back towards her friends.
"The modern vampyre is one of the most misunderstood phenomenon in pop culture. Long before Twilight, these creatures of the night…" Brittany paused to giggle softly.
"These creatures of the night were seen as the worst nightmares of humanity. Now they are lauded, praised, and loved by millions. Have we, as a human race, fallen so far that we cannot see the danger in front of our very eyes? Have we become so blind that we would allow our demons to overtake us? Are we so idiotic as to allow the basest of god's creation to become our overlords?"
Puck grinned. "Say what you want about the old boy, but he's certainly got an ear for the dramatic."
"Half the stuff in this book is inaccurate. The other half is just plain silly. I wonder why Sue cares about this guy."
This seemed to pique Tina's interest, and she turned around where she sat and held a hand out.
"Lemme take a look."
As Brittany was walking towards her to hand the book over, she stopped suddenly in her tracks, one foot still raised halfway in the air. Her head tilted slightly to the side, as she pointed her ear towards the apartment door.
"He's coming. He just got off the elevator."
That gave them about fifteen seconds before he got to his door, and they scrambled to get into position before he came in.
Exactly fifteen seconds later they could all hear the key scraping the lock, being inserted, and the tumblers turning, as the door was unlocked. Not a soul breathed as the door swung open towards them.
\
"Blaine, you're just making this harder on yourself." Santana purred, leaning over Blaine as he sat in the armchair.
Blaine rolled his eyes. "Please, Santana, you know your attempts at seduction are wasted on me."
"I wasn't talking about kissing you. I was talking about kicking your a-"
"Santana. A word?"
Santana slowly rolled her eyes to Rachel, who was standing nearby, clutching her hands behind her back.
"A moment, Mr. Anderson. Jane, why don't you come over and keep him company?"
Jane nodded, and bounced over, her huge curls waving and bouncing right along with her. Santana had to give it to her intern, she was doing pretty well. This was the first time she'd taken her with her on a shakedown, and honestly, she was holding her own.
Santana walked away from Blaine where he sat in a spinning office chair she'd pulled to the middle of the room. Rachel grabbed her arm, and pulled her into a hallway towards the bathroom.
"What the hell, Berry? I could see the sweat dripping on his forehead. He's going to crack."
"Might I suggest, Santana, that the old adage is true now more than ever. You really do catch more flies with honey, rather than vinegar, and if we're going to discover the truth behind this mysterious artifact, which may or may not be in Blaine's possession-"
"The point, hobbit. Would you please get to it?"
Rachel sighed. "Why don't you let me take the lead on this one? I don't want to get dragged down to the police station, and have to explain to my dads why I need them to come and bail me out again. My daddy still calls me his little jailbird, and my dad won't stop singing Jailhouse Rock every time I make the drive upstate."
Santana scoffed. "We'll be long gone before any police arrive, and I have some rope down in the car, we can totally-"
"I am not adding kidnapping to the list of offenses that we might commit tonight."
Rachel crossed her arms and set her jaw, and Santana knew that arguing with her on this point would only waste more of her time, and make her even more annoyed than she felt at that moment, which was pretty annoyed.
"Fine, we'll do it your way, Berry, but if you screw this up, I'm taking over." Santana dragged her thumb under her nostril, sniffing loudly.
Rachel didn't respond, but brushed past her, and back into the living room.
"Are you finished talking about me now? Would you please get out of my apartment?" Blaine looked between the women fiercely, but the quiver in his voice told Santana how unnerved he was to have them in his house.
"Soon enough, very soon, Mr. Anderson. Blaine. Can I call you Blaine?" Rachel asked, dragging another chair over to the middle of the room where Blaine still sat.
"Fine whatever."
"Well, Blaine, I know that we've had our little disagreements from time to time…"
"Right." quipped Blaine, tossing his perfectly coiffed head in annoyance. "Like the time Santana let all the air out of my tires as I was on my way to talk to the president of the ancient aliens society?"
"Oh, is that right, Warbler?" Santana advanced on Blaine, and was caught by Jane, mid-stride. "That's only because you called Jon Blankenship, only the world's foremost expert on the Planet X theory, claiming to be my assistant, and then faxed him a ten page diatribe on how much I think he sucks. He canceled on me, Hair gel, and it took months for me to convince him that I wasn't responsible for that!"
Blaine seemed to be smiling happily at the memory, and incensed, Santana lunged again, almost breaking free from Jane's grasp. He yelped, and jumped up from his chair, crouching behind Rachel.
"Fine, Rachel, call off your attack hound, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know!"
Santana actually snarled at the insult, and renewed her attempts to get to Blaine.
Rachel only smiled knowingly. "Santana, enough."
Santana didn't seem to notice, and tried to lunge again, nearly knocking over a nearby coffee table.
"I said, enough!"
Santana's eyes lost their focus on Blaine, and turned towards Rachel. "Last I checked, Berry, the show was named after me. Which makes me your boss. Which means I give the orders."
"Since I'm your cohost, we're more like co-captains on the sea of life, but Blaine is going to tell us what we want to know, so there's no need for all of this aggression."
Santana rolled her eyes, and sighed deeply. She put her hands up in surrender, and flopped down on the couch.
"What have you got, bowtie?"
Realization dawned on Blaine's face. "Oh, I get it now! Good cop/Bad cop! I can't believe I fell for the oldest trick in the book!"
Rachel smiled softly. "I'd get to it, Blaine, before Santana starts to feel bored. You don't want to know what she gets up to when there's nothing else to do."
Blaine looked back at Rachel, her smile all teeth, and gulped loudly.
"Fine, then. What do you want to know?"
"What are you after?" Santana was the first to throw up a question, and while Rachel wouldn't have wanted Blaine to know how much they didn't know it seemed as good a place to start as any.
Blaine grimaced. "How do you know I'm after something?"
"Because," Santana said slowly, as if she were talking to a small child. "You've been bragging about it all week on that stupid website of yours, and now we have an intern who will sift through all the dreg there, and come up with something actually useful. There's not much."
Jane seemed happy for the acknowledgment and nodded enthusiastically.
"Dregs?" Blaine stood up quickly. "I'll have you know that the messages boards are where the best of fans of Warbler's Wonders, or Warblerinos, as I like to call them, can meet and discuss-"
"Can it, helmet hair, and tell us what you're up to."
Blaine huffed, stomping back over to his chair. "Well, what do you think your enlightened SLINN listeners would do if they found out you were jacking upstanding reporters for your stories?"
"Reporter?" Santana scoffed. "That's a strong word for what it is you do!"
Rachel put up a hand before the conversation could get any more off track. "Blaine, details, please. We only want to offer our insight in what might be a tough case to solve. If the rumors are any indication."
"Fine." Blaine relented. "I was in the stacks of the New York Public Library doing some research on a new story. I've heard that there's been an uptick in vampire activity in the last six months or so."
"Where'd you hear that?" Santana interrupted.
"I've got my sources. I'd started doing some research and the dates correlate with a huge upswing in vampire sightings at the beginning of the 20th century. So, I was in the archives, and found some really cool books detailing the library's construction, and this led me to some blueprints of the library from when it opened in 1911."
"I've heard of that. Those 1909 attacks, I mean. A bunch of orphans and prostitutes out in the Bronx went missing, and some of the witnesses said they saw folks with glowing eyes or some other nonsense."
Blaine nodded quickly, both he and Santana enjoying a moment of solidarity over being history nerds.
"Anyway, so one of the books mentions a relic that can be used in the fight against vampires. It was discovered by Karl Kresnick in Croatia in the winter of 1889, and then lost after his mysterious death in 1902."
"Who's Karl Kresnick?" Jane wondered aloud, to no one in particular.
"He was a Serbian vampire hunter. He wrote a lot of long ass novels about his research. Some of it was worth something, a lot of it was not. But he didn't seem to be as full of shit as some of the other charlatans who got into the vampire hunting scene during the late 19th/ early 20th century."
"Santana." Blaine interrupted with an annoyed tone. "The works that survived from Kresnick have given us the most insight that we've had since-"
"Let's just move on with the story, huh Bowtie?"
Blaine grimaced and cleared his throat. "Anyway, Kresnick passed on the relic to one of his cousins who was going to the US to work in the family business, and that cousin wrote back to him in 1903, not knowing he had died the year before. I found a copy of the letter, and it mentions the relic in amazing detail."
"And how in the world was the result of all this you, in the basement of the main branch of the New York Public Library, looking at blueprints?" Rachel asked, her face a question mark.
"The family business was construction. The Kresnicks were well known for building magnificent structures back in the Old Country, and then they came to the New Country, and continued the family trade."
"So you think that Cousin Kresnick put the relic in the library when he was building it?"
"It's not the craziest thing you've ever heard, is it, Santana? He wanted to keep it safe from vampires, who are known as being pretty wily. Why wouldn't you put something that you know they're searching for someplace where they'd never think to look?"
Santana didn't reply, furrowing her brow and considering Blaine carefully.
"Did you find it?" Rachel squeaked, leaning forward slightly in her chair.
Blaine tugged at his bow tie hopelessly. "Not yet. The blueprints didn't have anything out of the ordinary. It's a huge building. Without some idea of where to start, it would take me years to search every nook and cranny."
Santana patted his arm. "And that's where we come in, Mr. Warbler. We will be your designated dream team. And when the relic is found, by us, of course, we'll do a week of shows about it on SLINN, and then share that research with you."
Blaine balked. "Are you kidding me, Santana? There's no way I'm letting you take credit for this! I did all the leg work!"
"Now Santana, Blaine…" began Rachel, calmingly.
"You know what Rachel? I think that even letting him have it after we're done is being way too accommodating."
"You can't do this, Santana!" Shouted Blaine.
"You've already told us all we need to know, Blaine-y boy. If the question is who's going to find it first, you don't even have to break out your wallet to make that bet. We're better than you on our worst day."
Seeing it was pointless to argue, Blaine crossed his arms in a huff. "We'll see about that."
"Yup, we'll see."
Santana pulled Artie's keys out of her pocket, twirling them around on her finger. And walked towards the door, turning back in the door way.
"Let's go ladies, we've got a date with an ancient relic."
Jane made a move to follow Santana, but Rachel only stood and stopped in front of Blaine.
"Blaine, I'll have you know that I don't support this kind of duplicity. If we find the relic first-"
"When." interrupted Santana.
"If." Rachel repeated, cutting her eyes to Santana. "I will do everything in my power to ensure that you have equal access and broadcasting privileges."
Blaine's eyes looked like they wanted to mist over, and he smiled grimly.
"Thank you, Rachel."
Santana's eye roll was practically audible. "Let's go, Berry. We haven't got all night. We have a broadcast to get to."
Rachel nodded, turning towards the door, but hesitated a moment before turning back.
"Though, we're missing a very important part to this story. Blaine, if I might ask, what exactly does this relic do?"
Blaine's smile went from sad to vindictive. He turned his eyes smugly to Santana and lifted an eyebrow.
"I guess you'll just have to figure that out on your own, won't you?"
Santana scoffed, taking a few steps back into the room, and grabbing Rachel by the elbow.
"We already have all we need."
"I wouldn't be too sure." Blaine whispered to the closing door. "I wouldn't be too sure."
\
The sight of human blood always made Brittany feel a bit uneasy. She was well aware of its more useful qualities, but it all depended on the context. And the context that she was witnessing at the moment didn't quite sit well with her.
"Let's just get this over with." She said to Puck, smacking on her gum in annoyance.
Will, who sat restrained in a dining room chair, hands behind his back and mouth covered with tape, began to breathe heavily, in response to her words, the blood dripping from his nose misting over his white shirt.
Brittany had simply been watching as Puck grabbed Will when he first walked it, lifting him up as if he were a toddler, and slammed him down in the chair that they set up in the middle of the crowded room. Tina had moved in a flash to secure him to the chair with tape, wrapping what was probably way too much around him in a matter of seconds.
Now Brittany approached where he sat, putting a hand on top of his mound of curly hair, and patting reassuringly.
"Don't worry, we're not here to kill you."
Both Puck and Tina sighed loudly.
"You're not supposed to tell him that, Brittany." Tina groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Well, it's true, and there's no point in making him worry for no reason." Brittany countered, still patting Will's hair.
She wondered how he made his brown hair so curly. Was it a perm, or was it always like that? She'd seen him a few times before, and it seemed to be his thing. She wondered how she'd look with her hair all curly like that. She reminded herself to ask Will later.
As, as she patted his head, she could feel his heart rate slowing from the pace set a few moments before when it had sounded like it was about to beat out of his chest. They couldn't have him having a heart attack and dying right then and there, could they? Sue would probably have something to say about that.
"Anyway." Brittany moved back to the edge of the couch, and perched herself on the arm, gesturing towards Will. "Please continue."
Tina sighed again, and walked over to Will, grazing a nail over his jugular vein.
"We don't have to kill you to make you suffer, Will. It just means we have to get a little bit more creative. And my friend here, " She nodded at Puck. "Can get very creative."
Puck only chuckled deeply, a dark look crossing his features.
Brittany rolled her eyes. She wasn't even sure why she had come along with Puck and Tina. She didn't like little exercises like this. They were pointless and they always made her feel like she needed a shower afterwards. Whenever she'd ask Sue about it, she would say it was because Brittany needed to "toughen up". Well, Brittany knew what tough was, and it wasn't hiding in someone's apartment until they showed up, surprising them, and then tying them to a chair. She brought her knees up to her chest, and watched Puck approach Will, while Tina pulled up a chair to look at Will directly.
Brittany could hear a faint rustling sound, like a string being dragged back and forth across a sheet of paper. The sound was way too low for Puck and Tina to hear, and it was barely noticeable for her, mostly due to the rain pounding the window. It may have been coming from an apartment three doors down for all she knew. She turned her attention back to Puck, who was circling menacingly around Will, coming to a stop right beside him.
"Oh sure. I can get real creative."
Puck kneeled down, and pulled something out of his boot. With a few quick flicks the butterfly knife shined in the reflection from the lights outside the window.
Brittany could hear Will's breath stop, and saw his eyes grow wide.
"You're going to give up on your little vampiric goose chase, Willy-boy."
Puck dragged the blade slowly down each of Will's cheeks a razor thin line of blood appearing on each one from the sharp knife.
Will only nodded frantically, and Brittany could hear his breathing continue, more of a pant, and the faint rustling become even more insistent.
Untangling herself from where she sat on the couch, Brittany began to move around the room, dodging stacks of papers and books, and leaned her ear against one wall, and then another.
Puck and Will paid her no mind, but Tina stood up, annoyed and stomped to where Brittany stood, her ear pressed up against the wall.
"I get it, Britt, you're not interested, but could you at least act like you're menacing even a little bit. Sue is not going to like it-"
"Shhhh!" Brittany snapped, putting her finger to Tina's mouth.
Tina grimaced, and shook her head until Brittany's finger fell away.
"What the hell-?"
"I said be quiet, Tina. I hear something."
"Well, Will's neighbors getting it on, notwithstanding, we need to focus-"
"What do you think I'm doing?" Brittany whispered fiercely, her eyes narrowing.
Brittany still couldn't pinpoint the sound, but realized that it wasn't coming from another room, but the one they were all standing in now. Her eyes flitted from side to side frantically.
"What in the hell…?" She said, echoing Tina's sentiments.
Suddenly, the noise stopped, and a flicker of movement caught her eye. It was Will. The sound had been coming from Will. She saw his hands move from where he'd sawed through the tape only a moment before and now they were up and free, working their way into his coat.
Puck was still delivering a blistering soliloquy to the ceiling and Tina was still staring at her opened mouthed, as she watched Will reach into his coat, and pull something out. She could feel it before she could see it. It wasn't just coated in silver, but a solid piece of the stuff, she should have smelled it a mile away, and wondered why she hadn't noticed it in his coat immediately.
"Puck!"
Her words were wasted as she saw Puck look down at Will, and gape at the silver cross that he gripped tightly and held like a shield covering his body.
Puck didn't have time to react, other than burying his face in the crook of his elbow, dropping the knife, screaming wildly, and falling to the floor.
Brittany's eyes turned to Tina, who was already on the ground, curled into a ball, moaning loudly.
Will still held the cross high, and was using his other hand to saw through the tape that held his legs. Brittany could now clearly see the blade that must have been hidden up his sleeve. Damn him. Why was he always so well prepared?
Will now stood, and pointed the silver cross towards Brittany, taking a few tentative steps in her direction. Brittany could still hear Tina whimpering in a ball at her feet, and looked hard at Puck who was rolling pathetically on the ground.
"You foul creature! You come into my home, uninvited?! How did you manage that, anyway? You know what, it doesn't matter. I'm going to make sure that your kind does not get the chance to terrorize the pure beings of this world any longer."
Brittany watched almost disinterestedly as Will advanced upon her, his confidence gaining with every step, and holding up the cross like a beacon lighting his way.
"If I have my way, I will wipe your kind off the face of the planet. Humanity will once again be safe-"
"Oh why don't you shut up?"
Will stopped, surprised. Turning the cross around in his hand, he looked at it, as though he was considering a lantern whose flame had gone out.
"Why isn't it-?"
He didn't finish as Brittany walked quickly until they were almost face to face, cocked back her right arm, and delivered a punch to his nose, one that left his eyes rolling back as he hit the ground with a thump.
"I don't generally like violence, but you're making me reconsider my position." Brittany quipped to the unconscious man.
She quickly wrapped the cross up in an old t-shirt that was laid across the couch, and opening the apartment window, tossed it into the alley below.
Behind her, Puck and Tina's breathing returned to normal, and they began to stir from where they were withered on the floor.
Brittany turned, offered them her brightest smile, and smacked her gum again for good measure. "And that, kids, is how we learned that we always search people after tying them up!"
\
"You don't really believe in all that stuff, do you Santana?"
"Why do you always have to antagonize him, Santana?"
The two questions came at the same time. They had been sitting in car for about fifteen minutes already, in relative silence as they made their way back to Artie's place to prepare for the podcast (which usually ran live). It was quiet in the vehicle, and even though that was because Rachel was too annoyed with her to make her usual ruckus, Santana was glad for it. She had been glancing at the clock as the minutes ticked by. A green 9:32 shined at her from the console.
Santana sighed, not looking over at Rachel in the passenger seat, but choosing to address her first.
"Because Rachel-"
"Because I can't possibly see what's the point in butting heads with him." Rachel fumes. "He could be someone on our side, helping us decode some of the greatest mysteries of the supernatural but you're always pushing him, and I don't really see the point. Warbler's Wonders is one of the most popular alternative vlogs on the internet, and SLINN could use the listeners. We're doing well, Santana, but not that well. I have long been a proponent of cooperation, you know that, and Blaine is good at what he does."
"Good?" Santana snorts, gripping the steering wheel a bit tighter. "Blaine is a stooge. His so called "fans" pump his head up so big, it's a wonder he hasn't gone bankrupt buying hair gel. His reporting is lazy, his methods are weak, and he'd do anything to appease the nutjobs that frequent his site."
"But his instinct is unmistakable, Santana. Even you can admit that."
Santana doesn't respond, but sneaks a look at Rachel, who is sitting up in her chair, and staring pointedly.
She finally shrugs and lets out a small grunt.
Knowing that this is the best that she's going to get, Rachel sits back in her chair. "So, can we, at least, try not to get under his skin at every opportunity?"
Santana shrugs again, choosing instead to punch a button on the radio. The sounds of smooth jazz fill the van.
Rachel, satisfied, turns back towards Jane.
"Of course she believes it, Jane. Why else do you think she's doing it?"
"But, I mean, ghosts, vampires, werewolves… All that stuff? Do you really think it's…. out there?" She gestured vaguely outside.
"I'm not as accepting as my colleague here would have you believe." Santana quipped, lingering on the word colleague as she knew it was Rachel's preferred term for their working relationship. "All I know is that there are things in this world, that I don't understand, and I don't discount any of them."
Santana glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Jane's eyes grow wide. "What would you do if you saw a vampire right now?"
"Probably ask it how I can join the club."