Rachel and Quinn: Witch Hunters!
chapter three
Rachel turns to Quinn with a puzzled stare. The pink-haired former cheerleader takes grim note of the worry swirling in her girlfriend's eyes, in the set of her jaw, the tension of her shoulders. They've been at this all night, ever since they returned from getting Tina and Brittany home safely (Tina had been so badly shaken that she'd needed some magical assistance in getting to sleep) – poring over one heavy old tome after another, searching countless sites on SpellWeb, the secret magical corner of the Internet, even Scrying into Brittany's dreams as she slept – and still they were no closer to figuring out the origin of the familiar that had attacked their friends at the duck pond.
"I don't get it," Rachel says wearily. She closes her eyes, rubs her hand over them in frustration. It's very late, but Quinn knows that Rachel won't rest until they've found something – anything – that resembles a clue. Something that will set them on the path to determining where the creature had come from, and how it had crossed the Boundary between the Otherworld and their little Midwestern suburb.
Quinn gestures to place a magical bookmark in the Grimoire she's been studying for the last half hour, then crosses the floor of the Berry family's basement to place a comforting arm around Rachel's shoulders. She doesn't like seeing Rachel so frustrated; indeed, she shares her girlfriend's concern. Experience has taught her that encouragement and reassurance are what Rachel needs right now, if a full-blown meltdown is to be avoided.
(And such avoidance is needed: the last Rachel rant had uprooted the ancient tree in the Berry backyard, and it had taken some very careful, precision spellwork to put it back in place and reconnect its gnarled, massive roots to the magical ley lines that run beneath the Lima soil.)
"We'll find something, Rachel. You know we will," Quinn says in her quietest, most soothing voice. "Things like this can't stay hidden for very long. You've sent a message to the Witch Court, right?" Rachel nods affirmatively. "Okay, good. The Mothers will help. This is the most serious breach of the Boundary there's been in, like, a really long time. I can't imagine it's gone unnoticed at Greyhall."
"I would think so, but...I don't know. I just – I just have a very..." Rachel pauses, searching for the right word. "...uneasy feeling about the whole thing. That familiar was a warning. A harbinger. An omen of ill intent. Something in the Otherworld has its eye on our town, Quinn. Something incredibly old, and very powerful."
Rachel shivers, and Quinn squeezes her more tightly. The diminutive brunette smiles at her through her fatigue, then continues, her mind flashing back to earlier that night, in the park.
"I felt the strength of the bond that held the poor thing...it hadn't thought a single thought of its own in hundreds of years, at least. Its mind - its very soul – they were just...burned out. There wasn't a single scrap, the smallest vestige of who it once was, before it was bound. Nor was there any recognizable power signature anywhere."
She inhales deeply, then lets the breath out in a long, slow exhalation. "This isn't anything we've faced before, Quinn. It's darker, more malevolent."
Quinn's mouth tightens into a frown as she carefully considers her reply. She doesn't want to upset Rachel any further, but she knows that what she's about to say has to at least be considered.
"Maybe...maybe we should bring your mom in on this," she begins slowly. "If – if it's what I think it could be, I mean, she could be a big help."
Rachel's pretty face darkens in anger, and Quinn's heart sinks. Here comes the rant.
"No. Not Shelby," Rachel says flatly, hopping down from the high bar stool on which she's been seated, abandoning her laptop on the table, and the fifty or so tabs open on the web browser that Quinn can see on the screen. Quinn sighs, watching her girlfriend begin to pace, listening to the way the girl's speech quickens, how the anxiety in her voice rises even as she visibly strains to keep its volume down. "There are any number of other magical practitioners in this town with whom I would consult first. Ryerson, for example – okay, the man's a creep, but he knows things. And then there's Emma. Yes, she's a little skittish, but who wouldn't be, after being held for ransom by a bunch of nasty little goblins?"
Quinn covers her mouth with a hand to hide her smile. That had been quite an adventure.
Rachel stops in mid-pace, cold. She narrows her eyes at Quinn and stamps her foot, crossing her arms and huffing at the same time. "I know you're smiling, and it's not funny. The poor woman had to take seventeen showers to get the stench of those goblins off her! Seventeen! Not to mention the fact that she had to burn everything she was wearing, even her shoes and underwear, and that was her favorite dress!"
Quinn holds her hands up in surrender, though she still can't quite erase the smile from her face. She needs a release from the almost unbearable tension of the last several hours, and if the mental image of the normally very prim and proper Emma Pillsbury being carried out of an underground goblin nest with twigs in her hair and dirt smudged across her cheeks is what it takes, well, so be it. Besides, Rachel had laughed about it too.
"Okay, okay," Quinn concedes. "We'll keep Shelby out of it – for now. But if things get to the point where we've tried everything else -"
"Then we'll consider it," Rachel finishes for her, nodding sharply for emphasis, signaling that this part of the discussion was now over.
Quinn's phone buzzes with a text message alert. There's only one person besides her mother who could possibly be messaging her at this late hour.
"Santana," Rachel says, stating the obvious, unable to keep a tiny note of jealousy from coloring her voice, hating the fact.
Quinn nods, registering that-tell tale off-note, but choosing not to acknowledge it as she pulls up the message. Seconds later, she gasps.
"What? What is it, Quinn?" All jealousy is pushed aside, all fatigue vanishes, when Rachel sees Quinn's pale visage whiten still further.
Suddenly unable to speak, her throat constricting, Quinn can only reply by raising her phone so that Rachel can see it. A gesture later, the image on the screen projects into the air to enable Rachel to read it. Her eyes widen at the words, then squeeze shut as the projection disappears.
Quinn's voice is strangled, broken, barely above a whisper when at last she breaks the silence. Rachel's there, holding her, but she can't feel it. She can't feel anything.
"Beth is missing," she croaks, sobbing, tears streaking down her perfect cheeks. "Who...who would do this, Rachel? Who would take her – and why?"
A/N: Hello everyone! It's been a while since I've updated anything, but there's a very good reason for that - namely, a broken left elbow, which I suffered several weeks ago and turned me from a very fast two-handed typist into a very slow and frustratingly error-prone one-handed typist. This frustration blocked me from writing until now, when I finally decided to just get over it, push through the aggravation and annoyance, and just get some new chapters done, no matter what. I'm still wearing a sling, but I'm committed to doing my best to update things, slowly but surely, as I continue to heal. Please bear with me. In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy this chapter, and if you do (or don't), please review or PM me to let me know. Thank you!