In Every Generation

Chapter 4

Santana jolted awake on Wednesday morning and immediately threw a punch towards the noise to her left, relaxing slightly once it silenced. It took her a couple of seconds to realise that it was just her alarm clock, which was now laying in pieces after smashing against the wall.

Suddenly, there was a knock on her door. "Santana, honey, is everything alright?" the concerned voice of her father called from the hallway outside her room.

"Uh...yeah, Dad. Everything's fine." She responded, her voice still thick with sleep despite her dramatic awakening. "Just...dropped my phone." she added, trying to sounds convincing.

"Alright then. Your mother's making breakfast as we speak." Her father replied, before Santana hears his footsteps head downstairs. She sighed heavily and then stretched her arms. She felt like she hadn't really slept, despite the fact that she got to bed earlier than usual and had fallen asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. She looked over at the shattered remains of her alarm clock, realising how tense she felt at that moment despite being in no immediate danger. And then everything she'd heard from Brad and Shelby the day before came back to her.

Santana had never seen a vampire in her life, and she was incredibly sceptic about the whole thing. None of it seemed to make any sense as a whole, but then there were the little parts that seemed to slot together a little too well to be coincidental: Her strength, Brad knowing her name, Shelby becoming the new librarian and coming forward as Santana's 'watcher' just as she gets her powers and becomes the 'slayer'. Santana took a deep breath, deciding that even if the slayer part were just some prank, the powers are definitely there, and like Shelby said, she should probably focus on keeping them out of the attention of others until she can figure out how to either use them or make them go away. Wishful thinking.

Santana hopped into the shower quickly to wake herself up before changing into her cheerio uniform and rushing downstairs. She could smell the amazing pancakes her mother was so good at making from the landing and it made her realise how hungry she was this morning.

"Good morning, sweetheart." Her mother greeted her with a smile, setting a plate at Santana's usual space at the table just as Santana took her seat opposite her father, who was reading through the sports section of the Lima Express. "You look much better this morning." She commented after giving Santana a quick critical once-over.

"Yeah. Must've just been stress or something." Santana replied through a mouthful of pancake. Her father got to his feet.

"Well, I'd best be getting to work." He commented, folding the paper and putting it on the table as he walked around it to kiss his wife on the cheek. "Santana, do you need a ride?"

"Why? What time is it?" Santana asked, looking up to the clock, and then practically jumping out of her seat. "Crap! I have practise this morning." Santana moved past her parents towards the stairs.

"Language, Santana. I thought you had practise after school?" Her mother called after her.

"It was moved, Quinn texted me yesterday." She yelled back over her shoulder. She dashed into her room to grab her bag and homework before charging back downstairs. "But I will be late home today, and then I have to go out again later. Sorry."

"Why?"

"Uhh-" Santana panicked, realising 'it's my first slayer training session, wish me luck!' would probably raise a fair few questions. "Going to get ice-cream with Brittany. And then we're having a movie night." She lied, then turned on her heel to head to where she'd left her trainers by the front door. "I'm already late. Can I please have that ride to school?"

"Sure honey. Let's go." Said her father, grabbing his coat off the rack by the door and leading the way to the car.

Sue forced Santana to run five wind-sprints for every minute she was late. Seventy-five wind-sprints later and Santana felt totally fine. But she knew she shouldn't, so once she'd completed her task she pretended to limp towards the bench panting, acting totally exhausted, and downed half of her water bottle as if completely dehydrated.

"Sloppy, ladies. Take five." The rest of the squad soon joined her after being given a break by Sue, Quinn making a beeline for her side.

"That was harsh. Why were you late anyway? Did you forget?" Quinn asked innocently, but Santana could see that under her concerned expression Quinn was slightly gleeful that Santana had messed up and wouldn't be threatening her position as head-cheerleader any time soon.

"My alarm broke." Santana replied, too stubborn to admit that she had forgotten about the early practise.

"Too bad. Hey, are you going to Puck's party on Friday?"

Santana grimaced. "I don't think so. He just wants me there for sex."

"Well duh, it's Puck. But since when have you ever said no? I thought it was a mutual thing?" Santana ignored Quinn's cheap shot at her reputation and took a sip of her water bottle, looking out over the practise field and then scanning across the other girls on the squad who who were stretching and gossiping around the bench. She soon found herself staring at her best friend.

As if she could sense that Santana had been looking at her, Brittany turned to face her, then quickly excused herself from the conversation she had been in and made her way over to Santana as Quinn headed back towards their coach to have a quick word before practise resumed.

"Hey, San!" She greeted with a smile that quickly appeared on Santana's face too. Brittany's happiness was always contagious. "Can we talk soon? I really miss you. Why can't we hang out anymore?" Brittany's bluntness meant that Santana's smile didn't stick around and Santana quickly fumbled over thoughts trying to find some excuse to feed her friend.

"Britt, I'm sorry, I-" She began before being cut off by Sue ordering them all back out onto the field.

On top of Santana's original punishment of detention, Santana found out the hard way that Sue had also decided to demote her to the bottom of the pyramid for the rest of the week. While this did infuriate her – she had worked hard to claim her spot and now some other girl she didn't even like was literally using her as a stepping stone – it at least made it easier for her to keep her slayer strength in check, since her movements where confined to kneeling on all fours and – nope, that was it. Just the kneeling.

After a quick debrief – or post-practise roast, to be more accurate – from Sue, in which two other girls who had apparently performed terribly were told they were going to be 'joining Lopez at lunchtime for more practise', Santana and the squad were finally allowed to hit the showers.

Her, Brittany and Quinn walked to Glee together. Brittany and Quinn kept each other held up in discussing Puck's party while Santana tried to block them out. She then took a seat at the back away from anyone else and tuned the world out. The only thing that caught her attention during Glee was the way Brad had taken to staring at her whether or not he thought she was looking. Since Santana had now heard a reason – an unrealistic, ridiculous reason, but a reason nonetheless – for why he showed such interest in her, she realised she didn't mind so much any more.

Her focus remained practically non-existent for more of the day.

In Math she could barely concentrate on the test in front of her, managing to scribble in every answer she could figure out without too much effort but doodling mindlessly for the rest of the period.

She actually fell asleep in Spanish, to be awoken by an irritated Mr Schuester.

"Santana, if you're not going to even pretend to pay attention, I'm going to have to give you detention." Mr Schue stated. Santana apologised evenly, before correcting the conjugations he'd written on the board, causing him to blush at his errors. She leaned her head on her hand and stared out of the window for the remainder of the class. Once the bell rang she handed in her flawless Spanish essay and headed to her next class.

Santana arrived early to lunchtime cheer practise – she was already on Sue's shit list so she decided to play nice until her name was cleared. She was just doing her stretches when Sue and the two other girls made their way out onto the field. The other two girls came to a halt and started stretching together a few meters away from Santana, clearly aware of the stunt that had landed her in lunchtime practise in the first place and a little wary of her.

"Nice to see you on point Lopez. We'll be doing some aerial exercises today. Try not to kill anyone." Sue muttered to the girl as she walked past. Santana rolled her eyes but remembered Shelby's warning about acting like a regular teenage girl, with regular teenage speed and strength and endurance.

"Alright, ladies, warm up. Take a run to the end zone, last one back will be losing their spray tan privileges until the end of the month." Sue addressed them through her megaphone. The two girls who had now come to stand nearer Santana gasped at the threat but didn't actually start moving until Sue blew her whistle and yelled "Move!"

Santana let the two girls move first and then took off at what she'd thought was her normal speed, not noticing how quickly she'd picked up pace until she looked back to see the two other girls about thirty yards behind her when she was certain she had just passed them a second ago. Santana promptly slowed down - she still made it back first, but at least now the differences in the time taken between her and the other two were more realistic.

"About time, ladies. Lopez was starting to look so bored waiting for you to finish I considered sending her out there to throw you back here herself."

Well, almost more realistic. The two girls eyed Santana warily and Santana wondered how long it would be before Sue would get over using that one screw-up as a joke.

They proceeded with the aerial exercises – using Santana as a flyer, which was probably a conscious decision on Sue's part, and the rest of the practise passed smoothly.

"So even though I'm a vampire slayer...it's not just vampires." Santana frowned at what Shelby was saying. She was in her second 'detention' and now that the initial dust had settled about Santana's identity, Shelby had decided to educate Santana further on what was expected of her as the slayer.

"No, unfortunately not. Vampires, demons, occasionally witches and warlocks. Every kind of evil, really." Shelby responded honestly.

"So what does a demon look like?"

"It depends on the kind of demon. There's hundreds of different types out there. Probably a fair few we don't even have information on yet."

"Great." Santana muttered sarcastically under her breath.

"Look, all of the vampire stuff is already in this book," Shelby tapped the cover of the large volume of 'Vampyr' that had resumed its' intimidating place on the desk in front of Santana, "and as for the demons...there's not a lot we can do about them until they show up. One thing at a time. You'll learn as you go."

"Okay. But how am I supposed to balance all of this crap-" Santana gestured sharply to the book, making reference to her new life as a slayer. "- with other things. I'm a high school student and a cheerleader. I barely have time for anything else."

"Well, one of the things you clearly have yet to master is prioritisation. Don't worry, that'll click into place once you realise that you are the one thing standing between everyone in Lima and real mortal danger." Shelby answered dryly. Santana rolled her eyes so Shelby elaborated. "You will find time for this – you think you're the first high school cheerleader to become a slayer? You're not."

Santana looked down, realising that girls just like her have been killed doing this- job? Duty? Santana wasn't even sure what to call it. Shelby quickly brought Santana back to the present by laying out what she'll actually be doing.

"Your training will be as often as we can squeeze it in - after, before or even during school hours. On weekends. During holidays. But in the evenings, starting soon, you will do patrols." Santana's head tilted in confusion so Shelby explained. "Lima has three cemeteries. When a vampire rises, this is generally where it'll rise from. Sometimes they make nests out of the crypts or hang around to prey on lone civilians. You'll patrol, find them and kill them as necessary. Obviously vampires won't be outdoors during daylight, so you won't have to worry about this clashing with school."

Santana nodded her head, trying to picture herself stalking around a graveyard in the dark looking for monsters – monsters she couldn't even picture. As if she'd just read Santana's mind, Shelby opened the book before her to a page showing a life-like sketch of a face.

"Here's the before shot." Shelby said. She then turned the page to show a sketch of what was almost the same face, except it was now grotesque – the brow was heavy, the eyes were more piercing, and instead of regular human teeth, there were clearly visible fangs. It was like a human face distorted, and chilled Santana more than she cared to admit. "And this is what comes out of the ground. Some vampires can change their composition back to the regular human form, which is obviously useful if they wish to blend in to hunt for victims." Shelby stated, and Santana shuddered. But she pushed her fear down and instead tried to embrace this whole situation.

She brought her head up to look Shelby in the eye.

"When can I see a real one?" She asked, not a hint of fear in her voice. Shelby met her eye evenly and answered.

"Tonight."

"You drive like an asshole." Santana stated, slamming her drivers side door shut and locking her vehicle before approaching the older woman.

"And yet you still managed to keep up with me."

After Shelby thought Santana had learned enough about vampires for the time being, she sent Santana home so she could change and eat something, telling her to meet back at school in two hours. Shelby had then explained they needed to drive somewhere, telling Santana to follow in her own car.

Santana smirked at Shelby's reply, before looking up at the warehouse Shelby had led her to. It was a large structure with grey but smooth concrete walls and a metal roof that had turned brown with rust. The place was clearly abandoned, with few of the window panes remaining intact, those that remained whole stained with dust and mould. Ivy and moss scaled the outside walls, not sparing the large brown wooden door that had deteriorated slightly at the edges from untreated damp. Santana frowned at the state of the building. Shelby noticed her apprehension.

"It's safe. Don't let the outside fool you, the interior structure is secure."

"Why do we need to be here?" Santana scrunched her nose as she asked.

"Look around us, what do you see?" Shelby asked, clearly making a point.

"Nothing." By the sunset Santana could see the building stood alone surrounded by vast plains of dirt that were probably once fields. Santana's car had almost had a couple of suspension issues handling the unmaintained lonely dirt road leading up to the warehouse.

"Exactly." Said Shelby, turning away to approach the entrance to the building and yanking on the rusted padlock that immediately gave way - clearly just a deterrent and no real use. "I needed somewhere remote for your training." She explained, sliding the door open and stepping inside. Santana quickly followed.

"Remote? Why not just use a gym?" Santana asked, as Shelby switched flicked a switch causing light to flood the interior of the warehouse. Santana almost jumped out of her skin when something towards the back of the warehouse suddenly moved. Santana locked eyes on the human form that was now staring straight at her. She flinched when it suddenly released a growl.

"They wouldn't let me keep one of those at the gym." Shelby said smartly, closing the door behind them before walking further in towards the figure. "Come on, it can't touch you." She called over her shoulder, causing Santana to take slow, cautious steps to follow until they were stood side by side about ten meters away from the vampire before them. Santana stood tense but relaxed slightly upon noticing it was chained and couldn't move further than a couple of feet in any direction from where its chains were attached to the floor.

Santana allowed herself another step forward to get a closer look and take in every detail. It was clearly a male, she could tell by the size, the hair and the ragged casual clothes. He was squatting, though his movements were not so limited by the restraints that squatting was necessary. She squinted, taking in the two dots just visible on his neck. When she got to the face, she gasped.

"That's..." Santana stared in shock at the former high school librarian - the one Shelby had since replaced. As if sensing that Santana recognised him, the vampire adopted a softer expression, almost as if it was sorry for itself. Santana inched closer slowly, totally transfixed by what had become of a former member of the school faculty.

And then he lunged.

Santana jumped backwards, stumbling and landing on her ass, before scrambling back in a rush, her face awash with fear. The vampire would never have been able to reach her anyway, his restraints too effective, but the shock pulsed through Santana. Shelby helped her to her feet.

"Are you alright?" She asked gently. Santana barely managed to shake her head, still frozen with shock.

It was all so real now she'd seen one in person. She turned to address Shelby while still keeping her gaze locked on the vampire.

"What happened to him?" She asked shakily.

"I'm not sure exactly. I found him in an alleyway not far from school and knocked him out to bring him here. His body was never recovered so there was no burial. Most likely he was attacked when he was out, he would've been bitten, but to change he would also have needed to consume his sire's blood-"

That was enough for Santana. She didn't hear the rest. This man who she once knew as a friendly face had been changed into a monster she could barely recognise. The reality made her nauseous. She quickly turned and ran, sliding the door open easily and making it another ten yards before dropping to her knees and releasing her stomach contents just beyond when Shelby had parked her car.

She was just wiping her mouth and standing back up on shaky legs when Shelby reached her.

"We're not doing anything else for today." Shelby calmly informed her, helping to lead Santana back to her car and opening the back door. Santana took a seat sideways so her body faced out away from the warehouse and she took deep breaths to calm herself. Shelby had gone to turn the lights out and 'lock up'. By the time she returned Santana felt just about okay to drive, and made her way to her own car without saying a word.

Shelby led the way back towards town, and then - despite it being out of her way - drove behind Santana until the teenager was safely home before turning around to head home herself.

The little sleep Santana did get was haunted by the face of the monster she met today.