Rachel and Quinn: Witch Hunters!

chapter eight

Santana was a mess, to put it bluntly. She was absolutely frantic, with the lifeless body of Azimio Adams sprawled out on the Berry basement floor at her feet, and an unconscious Puck completely unresponsive, even to repeated hard slaps to his cheek. Hugging herself against a chill that ran up and down her spine and wouldn't stop, she screwed her eyes shut, struggled badly against the impulse to scream. Holding it back meant sobbing uncontrollably instead; she found that to be preferable, knowing that if she started screaming, she likely wouldn't be able to stop. A part of her knew that Rachel and Quinn wouldn't have left her with this burden if they hadn't absolutely had to do so, but another part of her couldn't help but be angry with them for it.

When she blinked to clear away her frightened tears, angrily wiping them away with fingers whose nails she had bitten since the two more experienced witches had left to face who knew what, Azimio's sightless stare seemed to admonish her for her anger. It took real effort for her to tear her gaze away from those accusing orbs; she felt as though they were somehow looking into her soul, judging her, and finding her lacking in some way. At least Puck's eyes were closed. The boy's tall, muscled frame was awkwardly splayed out on a rolling office chair, his limbs all sticking out gracelessly at odd angles. It had been quite a struggle for her to half-drag, half-lift him up off the floor and into the chair, especially when the damned thing kept rolling away from her, but she'd felt an absurd sense of pride when she'd finally succeeded.

After a seemingly interminable length of time, which she'd spent huddled with her knees against her chest on the couch, watching to see if Puck would finally awaken so that at least she could share her terror with someone, Santana suddenly became aware that the magical shield surrounding the house had disappeared. Her mind punctuated its abrupt absence with a cartoon pop, and her tense, aching limbs finally relaxed. She felt like a punctured balloon, all the air slowly being let out of it, until only a limp fragment remained. She hadn't even known she'd been holding her breath for the last couple of minutes; somewhere in the back of her mind, the battle between Rachel, Quinn and some kind of horrible monster had been pounding at the base of her skull, and with her friends' victory, the need for the protective shield was gone. She realized that its presence had blunted her awareness of what they had been going through, and for that, she felt wearily grateful.

With that awareness came the sound of two insistent pairs of hands banging at the front door and repeatedly ringing the doorbell, accompanied by the desperate, worried voices of Brittany S. Pierce and Tina Cohen-Chang, filtering through the basement windows.

"Santana! Santana! I know you're in there!" she heard Brittany cry, and Santana's heart ached at the pure, palpitating fear in her best friend's hoarse, raspy voice. I bet the two of them have been out there for hours, ever since R and Q started fighting that – that whatever it was, she thought. "Are you all right? Please, open the door!"

Santana pushed herself up off the couch and stumbled up the stairs. She struggled for a moment with the tightly shut basement door, cursing her shaking hands as she fumbled with the doorknob. When she finally got it open, she dashed into the kitchen and through the living room to get to the front door. Her head pounded in time with the ringing doorbell.

"All right, all right, I'm coming!" she yelled, dimly aware that they couldn't possibly hear her over the cacophony of the doorbell and their own shouting.

The front door opened to reveal Tina's finger was hovering over the button for the doorbell, about to strike, both of Brittany's clenched fists an angry red from her repeated blows against the heavy wood. Their faces were streaked with tears, their eyes swollen and puffy, rimmed with pink. Santana thought they looked exactly how she felt: like they'd been turned inside out and back again.

"SANTANA!" screamed Brittany, launching herself at the exhausted Latina as though she'd been fired from a cannon. The tall blonde cheerleader buried her face in Santana's neck, crying once again into her dark hair, hugging her so fiercely that Santana thought she might break a rib or two, but her best friend didn't hear her gasp of pain. "OMG, San, we were so worried about you! I woke up with this horrible, sick feeling that something really, really bad was happening and that you might be in danger. So we rushed over here, but then we couldn't get near the house - not onto the front lawn, not into the driveway, the backyard, anywhere!" She stepped back, releasing Santana from the embrace, giving her a much-needed chance to breathe. Brittany wiped away her tears with the sleeve of her Cheerios jacket, she continued, "It was like there was an invisible wall around the whole place, so Tina and I just yelled and yelled and yelled, but we couldn't even hear ourselves. It was like our mouths kept opening but no sound was coming out."

"It was really weird," Tina confirmed, nodding. Strain and worry showed in her slightly rounded face. She forced a tiny smile that looked more like a grimace. "Like a force field. We'd walk forward, and it would throw us back. We just kept bouncing off it over and over again." She paused, shaking her head, her shiny black hair brushing across her shoulders. Santana recognized the smiley-face T-shirt the tired Asian girl was wearing as one she had given Brittany the previous year, but quickly hid the frown from her own face. "I'm just glad it dampened the sound – otherwise, Rachel would have some really angry neighbors right about now."

Santana had to smile the thought of Rachel casting a protection shield over the house every time she felt like belting out a song. That was probably the only reason her dads had never been sued or threatened with a call to the cops due to excessive singing of show tunes.

Tina shut and locked the front door, then looked around curiously with a puzzled expression on her face, realizing that they were apparently alone in the house. "Hey, where is Rachel?" she asked. "Is Quinn with her? Have you heard from them? Are they OK?"

Closing her eyes, Santana reached out with her thoughts, searching for the thread of connection that now bound her to the diminutive diva and her elegantly beautiful girlfriend, and couldn't quite stifle a gasp when she felt how weak and ragged the two witch hunters were in the aftermath of their battle with the elder demon.

"What's wrong?" said Brittany, immediately placing a concerned hand on one of Santana's slumping shoulders. "You look a little sick. Should I get you some water or something?"

"No, no," Santana waved away her concern, gesturing for Tina to stay where she was. "I'm...I'm all right. Just tired. It's been a long night. Rachel and Quinn...they're okay. Hurt, aching, banged up, but okay."

"Hurt?" Tina gasped. One hand flew to her chest, coming to rest over her heart. Confusion and concern showed in her dark eyes, the tense set of her jaw. "Why? And how do you know that?"

"Santana has...kind of a connection with them, like I have with her," Brittany explained, saving Santana the trouble of explaining Witch magic to Tina. "She can kind of get a sense of where they are and what's happening to them, if she thinks really hard about them, or if they're thinking about her."

Frowning, Tina turned her gaze from Brittany to Santana. "Like some kind of psychic thing?"

Questions swirled inside her, questions that made her stomach tight and her spine shiver. She feared she wouldn't like the answers to any of them, but she feared not asking even more. Ignorance was probably not bliss in this situation, and in most cases, Tina preferred knowing things to not knowing them.

Helplessly, Santana spread her hands and smiled what she hoped was a reassuring smile, but in her bone-deep exhaustion, she stumbled over her words. "You could...I guess you could say that. In a way, I mean." She fired off a curse in her head when she saw Tina's frown deepen, and began to mentally prepare herself for a slew of questions from the inquisitive girl. Anyone who had ever been in a class with her knew that Tina Cohen-Chang was all about the why of things.

A sudden, loud thump sounded from the basement, followed by a distinctly male shout of startled surprise, cutting off the discussion before it could start. Santana lowered her head and screwed her eyes shut, pinching the bridge of her nose with a thumb and forefinger and wishing that the pounding in her goddamned skull would stop for two seconds so she could collect her thoughts, because she so did not want to explain what they had all just heard without Rachel and Quinn present.

"What the fuck?" came the anguished cry up the stairs. Why hadn't she thought to close that door behind her? "Where the hell am I? And why is Azimio on the floor?"

Both Brittany's and Tina's jaws dropped at the sound of Puck's voice, and his name came out in a choked cry from both their mouths. Tina leveled a glare at Santana that she knew meant We are so talking about this later, while Brittany's blue eyes welled with tears once again.

"Yeah, about that," Santana began with a nervous laugh. "I can explain. You see -"

Brittany flew past her in a blur of pale skin and blonde hair, Tina trailing behind, a shadow in the house of light. Santana sighed and took a step into the living room when the front door opened and Rachel stepped through, followed by Quinn, both dirty and dusty and looking very much like they'd just been through a war - which, she reminded herself, they had. She took in the shocking sight of the two experienced witches barely standing before her, leaning on each other for support, all bruised and battered, with cuts and scrapes in various stages of magically induced healing evident everywhere that skin was exposed, and her heart broke for them, knowing instantly what the battle had cost them.

She wanted to comfort and console them, to mend their wounds and complete the healing they so obviously needed, both physically and emotionally. She wanted to lay them in their soft beds and bring them warm broth and cold compresses and tell them how much she had feared for them, how worried she had been, waiting here all alone for them to return, not knowing if they'd survived, or if – well, the alternative was too horrible to contemplate.

Instead, all she could think of to say, looking at them now, their normally gorgeous hair and beautiful clothes all disheveled, torn and tattered, was this:

"Couldn't you guys have gotten here just a minute or two sooner?"

Rachel was just about to let fly with a sarcastic reply when she heard the sound of Tina's scream emanate from the basement, followed by a shrill, sad wail that could only have come from Brittany.

Quinn hung her head. "Oh, no."

"Oh, yes," Rachel sighed glumly. "No rest for the weary. And I am really weary."

"What, should I not have let them in after the protection spell went down?"

"I know you're being all defensive now," said Quinn, "because you've just spent a bunch of time more or less locked in a basement with a corpse and a basket case, going out of your mind with worry for us - and we really do appreciate the concern, by the way – and that's just what you do when you feel a little overwhelmed, but could you save the lashing out for a time when we're slightly less dead on our feet?"

Santana blushed at Quinn's chastisement. Quinn had always possessed an uncanny ability to see through her bluster to the real emotions that moved her to act as she did; no matter the situation, Quinn was able to get to the heart of things with surgical precision, sharp and swift as a scalpel. It had been that way for as long as they'd known each other.

"Yeah, well – we've got a situation in the basement that needs attention. Three situations, actually, by my count," Santana replied. "Tina and Britt, number one. Puck, who's finally awake, number two. And the little matter of Azimio Adams' not-so-little body lying on the floor of your dads' basement, Rachel, looking more than just a tad gutted. So I'm thinking it would be a capital idea for us to get down there before we have three exploded heads to clean up. And by that I mean, like, right now."

The trio of witches trudged down the steps to the basement to find Tina and Brittany holding each other and weeping over Azimio's body while Puck stood off to the side, looking like he was just barely keeping himself together.

"Rachel? Santana? Quinn?" he listed their names in a numb monotone, looking at each in turn, as though he was just connecting their names with their faces for the first time. "Tina? Brittany? What...what are you all doing here? Whose house is this?" He gestured with his head to the body of his fallen friend. "Is he...is he...dead?"

"Yes, Puck," Rachel said gently, her voice low and soothing. "You're in my basement. Quinn and I brought you here after you and Azimio were...you were in an accident."

The tall, Mohawk-haired boy's eyes were glazed, unfocused, as he looked at her. Then they widened as the memory of the terror he had endured when the elder demon had manifested. He slammed his eyelids shut and covered his face with both hands, strangling a cry of anguish at the remembered horror of witnessing Azimio's murder.

"NO!" he shouted, his voice filled with anger and misery. His eyes shot open and he leveled an accusing glare at Rachel and Quinn. "No – there wasn't – he wasn't. Oh God, oh God, fuck, it's still out there! It's still out there, and it's going to kill me too! Me, and you -"

He pointed at them, then at Santana, Tina and Brittany, his voice raspy, his throat burning with rising bile. "- and you and you and you too! Why – why are we all just standing around here? It - it's gonna find us! It's gonna find us, and then – and then – oh God." His hands flew to the sides of his head, to his temples, as though he was trying to keep his brain from exploding. "We need to get out of here. We need to bury him, like, in the backyard, and then we need to just get the hell out of here, go someplace, somewhere it can't find us!"

Tina stepped away from Brittany, whipped her head around to Puck and then to the three witches, who all wore sad, mournful – yet strangely unafraid – faces. Her own expression was angry and confused, a mix of fright and exhaustion.

"You three," she said, pointing an emphatic, black-nailed finger. "You need to explain what's going on here, now. Otherwise I'm going to call the police and let them sort it all out."

"Tina!" exclaimed Brittany. "Calm down, okay? Fighting among ourselves isn't going to help anything."

"Calm down? No, I don't think so. Look around you, Britt." Tina sharply bit off each word, growing more furious by the second, waving her hands around in agitated fashion as she spoke. "Look! Puck is terrified, Azimio is dead, and the Unholy Trinity over here obviously knows why - but they don't want to tell us anything. Why? Why do you think that might be, Britt?"

"Hold up, goth wonder," Santana barked. "These two?" She gestured to Quinn and Rachel. "They're trying to protect you here. In fact, they're the only ones who can. If it weren't for them, you'd be -"

"If it weren't for them," Puck interrupted, "Azimio would be alive right now! He'd be alive, and he'd be, like, sleeping off all the pizza and beer we were about to have when he...when it...aw, shit..." He broke down, hiding his eyes, his breath coming in great, heaving sobs.

Brittany went to him then, wrapping a consoling arm around his shaking, trembling shoulders, trying to comfort the obviously traumatized boy, whispering It's okay, it's all right into his ear, over and over again.

"Tina, listen," Quinn began, pleading for patience and calm in the increasingly tense and fearful atmosphere that had come to dominate the room. "It's complicated. There...there are things happening in this town, things you can't understand. Britt had us...she asked us to dampen your memory of the incident in the park the other week, but now I think –" She let out a long, low sigh. "I think maybe we shouldn't have done it. If we hadn't, you'd be able to put what happened tonight in context -"

"Context?" Tina laughed. "In what context is the death of one of our classmates and the traumatizing of one of our friends acceptable? Reasonable? Understandable? Let alone the way Quinn and Rachel look right now." Her eyes softened as a horrible thought came to her. "OMG – he...Azimio...he didn't...he didn't hurt you, did he? Santana said you'd been hurt, and I didn't put two and two together, because math is not my friend right now, but -"

"Baby, don't," Brittany said, looking up from where she crouched next to the still-sobbing Puck, who had gone down to his knees. "Please. You don't know what you're asking."

"No, Britt. It's okay," said Rachel, somberly. The damage had been done, and it was bad enough. The last thing anyone wanted was to make it worse. "Tina is right. She deserves to know. We didn't want you to be a part of this. We didn't want Puck, or anyone else, to be a part of this. We even tried to keep Santana away from it, but – well, it's too late for any of that now."

Quinn looked at Rachel with a question in her beautiful hazel eyes. Rachel answered with a slow, tired nod. Santana stared at the two of them, bothered by the way they had closed their minds to her for this private, wordless conversation.

She was surprised when the pink-haired former Cheerio turned to her. "Santana. Show her."

"Wait, what? Show her? I don't know what you're -" Santana tried to protest, but of course she knew instinctively what Quinn was asking of her. Blood calls to blood, and blood answers. You're a Witch. You know what to do.

"Yes, you do. Consider it a test." Quinn's voice was calm, but there was iron in it. She was imposing her will, and Santana found that she could not deny it. "Now go on. Take Tina's hands."

The Asian girl was transfixed, truly not understanding what was happening now. All of her righteous fury was gone now, replaced by a queasy feeling of uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. She'd always liked to think of herself as someone who didn't scare easily, but deep down, she was truly frightened at this moment, all the way down to her very core.

Santana stepped over to where she stood, and without a word, she offered her hands to the Cheerio. Gazing at the Latina's lovely face, she wondered not for the first time how it was that Brittany had chosen to be with her and not Santana. The girl's beauty was absolutely stunning, and she found herself drowning in the deep, rich darkness of Santana's eyes, lost in the richness of her smooth caramel skin, the fullness of her red lips...

When Santana's hands closed over hers, she barely felt it. And then she heard the other girl say three words in a voice she'd never heard before, and felt a shiver run down her spine at the power in them, thrilled at the sensation. She felt hot and cold at the same time, pleasure and pain in the words, in her body's reaction to them.

"Remember. And know."

Something twists in her mind then, like a key in a lock, and the memory of rustling wings and malevolent avian eyes blooms like a dark flower. She cries out, tries to pull her hands away, but Santana's grip holds fast. New images flood her consciousness: Puck and Azimio on a Lima sidewalk, talking and laughing; a cold wind blowing; a sharp, sickening feeling of something terribly, horribly wrong taking shape before them, a creature conjured out of nightmare, a thing beyond comprehension. She sees the black-robed, long-boned figure of Samargauth, an Elder Being, a demon from a place that is not anywhere a normal human could ever imagine, reaching into Azimio's chest, watches the life and the light drain from the football player's eyes. She hears the Old One's laugh, the rasp of stone on stone, feels Azimio's lifeless body slump to the ground, sees Puck's shock and horror as he confronts the certain knowledge that he is about to be the next to feel that killing touch.

"Make it stop," she whispers. Tears stream down her face. Her body trembles. Santana holds her up with implacable, unyielding strength, refuses to let her fall. "Please. I don't – I don't want to know any more. I – I can't!"

She is very dimly aware that Brittany is calling to her, shouting her name, pleading with Santana to stop, begging Rachel and Quinn to make her let go. She knows, somehow, that her friends are sadly nodding no, that Puck is retreating further and further into the recesses of his mind, trying to block out the reality of what she's now witnessing, the truth of his own scarred memories, that Brittany is crying again, that Santana is too.

Santana's eyes hold her, keep her upright by sheer force of will, and Tina is astonished by the strength, the determination, the passion in her. She feels the same things emanating from Rachel and Quinn, realizes that they're sharing what energy they can with Santana, marvels at how extraordinary these people are, wonders how she never realized it before.

She sees Quinn and Rachel arriving on the scene, too late to help the fallen Azimio, watches as the two girls place themselves between Puck and the horror that's threatening to destroy him as easily as it had destroyed his friend, shares the feeling of nausea that fills Puck's innards at the sight of the thing, the overwhelming relief when they magically transport him and Azimio's body back to Rachel's place, where Santana waits and worries. Her body quivers as she sees the battle unfold, feels the sickly power of the elder demon battering the two Witches – yes, she knows that's what they are now, them and Santana – feels her blood recoil from its corrupting touch, flinches at the hurt inflicted upon Rachel and Quinn, again and again and again, hammer blows of appalling power. Her heart sings when she sees the weapon pierce the demon's bone-white flesh, soars as its vile essence is scattered to the winds after the purifying fire reduces it to ash.

"It's done," Santana said blankly. "And now you know."

With that, Santana finally let her hands fall to her sides. Brittany caught her when she fell, the sound of wings beating faintly sounding in her ears as blessed unconsciousness claimed her at last.

"You did well," Rachel said when she awoke a few minutes later. "The fainting was to be expected, yes, but I wasn't actually sure you'd be able to handle the entire memory."

Tina groaned at the sound of the girl's voice. Pain pulsed behind her eyes, and her tongue felt rough and dry. Her limbs were heavy and achy; Brittany was holding her upper body off the floor, while her legs were folded beneath her, as though she'd fallen to her knees and then tumbled backwards. She was tempted to ask what happened, but held back when she realized she already knew. Magic had touched her, and now she would never be the same again.

A red plastic cup suddenly hovered in front of her face, held by a pale alabaster hand, its form elegant and perfect. Quinn's. "Here. Drink this."

"What is it?" she asked warily, suddenly realizing that she could no longer see these people that she loved as friends so deeply in the same way ever again. There would now be an undercurrent of something else – Awe? Fear? Some combination of both, perhaps? - beneath that love forever, because of what they were and what they could do.

They were Witches. They were power. They were what stood between the world and the darkness that hungered to swallow it whole. She had seen it, and wished she hadn't.

"Something that will make you feel better, silly," came Brittany's voice from behind her, and she had to smile, because that was what Brittany's voice did for her. She felt the tall blonde's hand squeeze her shoulder reassuringly, and with a nod, she took the cup and drank from it...

...and was surprised to find that whatever it was didn't taste bad at all. So much for the fairy tales in which the witch's brew was always some kind of horrible, disgusting concoction that smelled vile and tasted worse.

"Not bad," she admitted, gulping down the last of the cup's contents, pleased to find the pain behind her eyes already receding, the heaviness in her limbs fading away. "Tastes...fruity. Like lemon-lime or something."

"Sprite," Rachel said brightly. "Or, more accurately, the beverage produced by actual sprites. Hard to get, since they're very shy around humans. You have to work a bit to gain their trust, but once they accept that you're not out to hurt them, they're quite sweet, and very generous."

Tina looked into the empty cup, then at Santana, who shrugged as if to say, Don't ask me. Rachel just smiled, while Quinn beckoned for Tina to return the empty cup for a refill. The pink-haired girl took the cup, made a quick, almost imperceptible gesture over it, and handed it back. When Tina looked into it again, it was full of the sweet, refreshing liquid once more.

"Okay, how did you – wait, no, never mind. I know how you did that. I saw it...before. You...the three of you -" she paused to sip at the delightfully fruity drink. "You're Witches. Sorceresses. Practitioners of the Mystical Arts. Oh my God, listen to me." She smacked one palm against her forehead. "My life has now become an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And I used to love that show."

"Except Lima is way lamer than Sunnydale," Santana remarked, drawing a look and a raised eyebrow from Quinn. "Oh, come on, Q. You know it's true. Their principal was much better than Figgins, for one thing."

"Can't argue with that," Brittany said, nodding. She pressed a kiss to Tina's temple, then wrapped her arms under her girlfriend's and around her chest. "Feel like you can get up now?" When she nodded in the affirmative, Brittany hauled them both up with the strength that never failed to both arouse and frighten her a little.

"It's good that you're up," said Rachel. "After two cups of sprite juice, you'll need to be able to move fairly quickly. It has an unfortunate tendency to go right through you."

Tina's eyes widened, and then she felt an uncomfortable pressure in her lower abdomen. "Oh, God. Rachel, where's your -"

"Right up the stairs and to your left."

"Thanks. I am so getting you back for this someday, by the way."

"Noted."

Tina hurried up the stairs without another word, leaving the rest of the girls to look at Rachel with expressions of amusement (Santana), curiosity (Quinn) and confusion (Brittany). The diminutive witch smiled sweetly at each in turn, then said, "What?"

"You did that just to put off explaining what we've done with Puck," Santana observed.

"I felt there was a need to create some separation between the memory projection and the teleportation," Rachel replied, shrugging. "There's only so much a human mind, even one as bright and perceptive as Tina's, can handle in a short period of time."

"I feel really bad for Puck, though. And Azimio, too," Brittany said sadly. "So is Tina."

Santana stepped over to the chair now occupied by her best friend, where Puck had sat before. "I know, Britt-Britt. We're sad, too. Puck, though – he's got a soft heart underneath his hard shell."

"Like a crab?"

"Exactly. Like a crab." Santana smiled at Brittany's delightfully childlike way of getting to the essence of things. "So we had to protect it as much as we could. That's why we replaced his memories of the fight with the demon and sent him back to where Rachel and Quinn found him with Azimio's body."

"So he could call the police and tell them that Azimio got hit by a car. That way, no one besides us will ever know what really happened," Brittany said, nodding in understanding.

"Right," said Quinn. "Because they couldn't possibly understand or believe the truth. Things like demon attacks just don't happen in Lima, as far as they're aware, and we need to keep it that way – or they could get hurt, just like Azimio did."

"I know it doesn't feel right, Brittany, but we're trying to keep the whole town safe here," Rachel stated firmly. "So the less people who know what's really going on, the better."

The sound of footsteps on the stairs kept Rachel from speaking further, but the concerned expression on Tina's face told her that the girl had heard enough to understand the situation.

"So what are you going to do with me?" Tina asked when she got down to the bottom of the stairs, drawing everyone's eyes to her. "Repress my memories again, make me forget the incident in the park, the things Santana showed me? No. I'll fight you if you try. I may not be a witch, but I am a strong woman and I will not go down quietly or easily. I'm in this now, for better or worse."

Quinn raised an eyebrow at the defiant set of Tina's shoulders, her clenched fists, her determined stance. "You think you understand the risks. You think you can handle more of what Santana showed you, or worse. You truly believe these things."

"I do. If Britt's in this, I'm in this. Something attacked her. Someone means to hurt her. I need to know who, and why." She fixed Santana with a look of desperation. "Santana, I know this isn't easy for you to hear, but I love Brittany. Okay? I'm in love with her, and if I can do anything to help you guys to protect her, I...I want to do just that. I need to do it."

Rachel nodded, then turned her attention from Tina to Brittany, who had silently taken in her girlfriend's impassioned plea with a serious, somber look on her face.

"Britt? How do you feel about this?" she asked. "I still have my reservations about expanding our little circle of knowledge, but...if you're okay with Tina being part of it, I am too."

"We just don't want to see her get hurt, that's all," added Santana. "We want both of you to be safe."

Brittany folded her hands in her lap and stared down at them for a few moments, as she tended to do whenever she was thinking really, really hard about something. Then she looked up with a cold flame blazing in her ice-blue eyes. The intensity she saw there actually caused Santana to take a step back from her best friend; it was something she'd never, ever seen in those beautifully colored orbs before.

She let out a long, low sigh, and when she finally spoke, her voice was thick with fatigue, but still firm and strong. "I think Tina's right. This is her fight too, and you shouldn't try to keep her from fighting it anymore. Or me, either. I just...I don't want to see anything like what happened to Azimio happen to anybody else, so if I can help to keep that from happening, like Tina said, that's what I want to do."

Quinn clapped her hands, signaling that the discussion was at an end. "All right then," she said. "Let's all get some sleep and come back to this in the morning. We're all exhausted, and no good to anybody if we don't get some rest. Tomorrow, Rachel and I are going to show you all some things you can do to protect yourselves, and then we're going to crack the books -" She gestured to the huge bookshelf that took up the entire wall at the opposite end of the room, which was packed with all manner of magical texts, some over a thousand years old. "- and we're going to start figuring out how we can take the fight to whoever it is that's behind this instead of waiting for the next attack. How does that sound?"

"Perfect," Rachel said. "Come on, you two." She stepped over to the foot of the basement stairs and motioned for Tina and Brittany to follow. "I'll show you to the guest room. San, you're bunking with me and Quinn tonight. Okay?"

"Fine with me. I hope you're not a blanket hog, though. I hate it when I can't get enough blanket."

"San, we're witches. We can create as much blanket as we like."

Santana blinked, brought up short in their march up the stairs. "Oh, yeah. That's right."

Meanwhile, back in the center of town, a shivering Puck stood in the still unusually chilly early Lima morning beside the body of his friend, waiting for the cops to arrive, wondering what was taking them so long.