The rain fell furiously, turning the clearing into a muddy mess that sucked at their boots. The battle between Lief and Jason had entered its most brutal phase, a chaos of water, mud, and violence under the lightning flashes.
The machete descended again, an arc that sought to split Lief in half.
He slid through the mud, spinning beneath the deadly blow while his pistols roared without interruption, firing upward.
The bullets struck Jason cleanly in the chest, and the power of purification imbued in them exploded in flashes of white light, stripping away wisps of hissing smoke from the killer's theoretically immortal body.
Jason let out a growl, recoiling from the sheer force of the impacts, unbalanced for a moment.
"Come on, big guy!" Lief yelled over the roar of the storm, his voice charged with an adrenaline-fueled taunt. "What's wrong? Don't you like the light? Because I have a lot more for you!"
Jason's reply was a roar of pure rage.
Ignoring the smoking holes in his torso, he lunged again, brandishing the machete with redoubled fury, forcing Lief to step back. As he dodged a slash that split a tree next to him, Lief changed tactics, trying a theory.
"Let's see how you like something more classic!" he shouted.
In the second of space he gained by leaping back, his free hand moved, materializing two heavy silver crosses, and he threw them with all his might, as if they were shurikens.
Swish
Jason, reacting purely on instinct, raised his machete to protect his face. The crosses collided against the steel and bounced off, one hitting his shoulder and the other his chest.
There was a sizzle, like a red-hot iron briefly touching damp flesh, but the effect was disappointing.
Jason barely paused before attacking again.
'Shit', Lief thought internally, panting as he dodged. 'Looks like vampire movie clichés don't work on this type of monster. Purification is more reliable.'
Jason lunged again, this time with a speed that seemed fueled by the damage. The machete sliced through the air, aimed directly at his head. Lief jumped backward, but the killer pursued him relentlessly, the blade passing so close that Lief could feel the cold wind on the tip of his nose.
Sick of being on the defensive, Lief extended his free hand while firing the other and simply pushed with his mind.
Boom
An invisible force burst from him, striking Jason.
He was thrown several yards backward but landed on his feet, barely regaining his balance in the mud. His strength and endurance were inhuman.
Lief frowned.
Although purification could wound him and telekinesis could keep him at bay, it was clear that to finish this thing off once and for all, he would need a much more direct method.
Meanwhile, Jason, consumed by rage, launched into one last desperate attack, a downward slash with the full force of his body.
The cut was so violent that it missed completely, and the enormous machete sank deeply into the mud, leaving him bent forward and dangerously off balance for a vital fraction of a second.
That was the opening.
Lief didn't think twice and lunged forward, closing the distance in an instant, and his hands clamped like claws onto the hockey mask, gripping Jason's head with crushing force.
He didn't shout any order or any mystical word; he simply decided to end it, channeling every ounce of his purifying ability directly from his palms.
A bluish-white light, so intense it was blinding, erupted.
The sacred power flooded Jason's skull, and he let out a deafening scream, a sound that was not human, a mixture of pure fury and unimaginable agony as his body convulsed violently.
White flames erupted from the eye holes of the mask and the neck joint, as if his corrupt essence were being boiled from within.
Lief maintained the pressure, his face impassive, discharging that purifying energy for ten long, agonizing seconds.
Finally, when the blinding light dissipated, Jason's superhuman resistance vanished. The immortal killer who had terrorized Crystal Lake for decades slumped heavily, falling face first into the mud.
And he did not move again.
"..."
Lief let out a long sigh, the vapor visible in the cold night air, but his gaze remained fixed on the fallen body, without lowering his guard for a second.
He knew that with beings like Jason, "dead" was rarely a permanent state.
He extended his hand and, using telekinesis, the corpse lifted from the mud and floated through the air, until it was suspended over the dark, churning center of the lake.
'That's where you belong.'
With a mental gesture, he cut the telekinetic force.
The body fell like a projectile, breaking the water's surface and raising a huge column of spray.
But Lief was not finished; he maintained concentration, extending his power to the lake bed, stirring up the muddy bottom and detaching large rocks from the shore to fall upon the corpse, firmly burying it under tons of mud and stone.
Only after the last boulder settled in the darkness did Lief finally allow his shoulders to relax, feeling the deep exhaustion.
The torrential rain began to diminish, turning into a light drizzle, and it was then that the other sounds of the night returned: in the distance, he could clearly hear the panicked screams and the chaotic noise coming from the camp.
He shook the mud off his hands, put away his pistols, and with the adrenaline leaving his system, began to walk back toward the madness.
…
The air in the dining hall was heavy with the smell of wet clothes and a panic so dense it was almost unbreathable.
More than thirty students were still crowded together in the center of the room, their faces pale and their eyes wide with terror. When the door opened with a creak that made everyone jump, heads turned with palpable tension, expecting the worst.
But.... it was Lief, soaked by the rain and covered in mud, but whole.
"Lief!" Carrie was the first to react, pushing her way through the paralyzed group to run toward him. "Oh my God, are you okay? Where were you?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine," he said with a calm that brutally contrasted with the hysteria in the room. "I just... went out to stretch my legs." He looked around, observing the sea of terrified faces. "I see things got interesting around here. I ran into the host on the mountain, too."
!
The dining hall fell into a deathly silence. An older student, the same one who had tried to organize the group, took a step forward, his voice visibly trembling.
"Wait... what do you mean 'the host'? Are you saying you met... the killer? J-Jason?"
"Well, he didn't formally introduce himself, but he was wearing the hockey mask and the machete, so I'd say yes, it was probably him," Lief replied without giving it the importance it needed. "We had a... 'disagreement' out there for quite a while." He ran a hand through his wet hair. "But it's over now. He should be back at the bottom of the lake sleeping. Don't worry, I doubt he'll bother anyone else tonight."
"..."
The students just stared at him, their brains unable to process the nonchalance with which he had just described an encounter with a murderous legend.
They exchanged looks of pure disbelief, unsure if Lief had lost his mind from fear or was pulling their leg.
The long night finally gave way.
With the first gray rays of dawn, someone's phone suddenly vibrated with the appearance of a single signal bar. The 911 call was hysterical, but effective.
Very soon, the sound of sirens approached, and several police cars arrived at the camp, followed by an ambulance.
When the officers, in their yellow raincoats, entered the administrators' cabin and saw the carnage in the morning light, their faces turned pale.
They began to question the students one by one, but most were too traumatized to offer anything coherent. They only stammered about screams, darkness, and a killer. And then, it was Lief's turn.
He calmly described his "encounter" with Jason, although he omitted the supernatural battle and replaced it with the most absurd version he could think of.
The officer taking notes with tired eyes stopped writing and stared at him. "Hold on a moment, son. Let me see if I've got this straight. Are you telling me that while the whole camp was in a panic, you were... 'chatting' with this maniac all night?"
"More or less," Lief replied, shrugging. "He's not a very talkative guy, really. He seemed more frustrated than anything else. I guess he just needed someone to listen." Having said that, he reflected. "In the end, he seemed to understand that he wasn't welcome and went back to the lake. I don't think he's coming out of there for a long, long time."
"..."
The police officers exchanged glances. It was clear what they thought: the boy had suffered such a deep shock that his mind had been damaged, creating a dissociated fantasy to cope with the terror. A high school student reasoning with a killer? It was absurd.
But regardless of the far-fetched stories of a teenager in shock, the reality was undeniable. Crystal Lake Camp was the scene of a multiple crime, and the summer camp was obviously canceled immediately.
The students, still trembling, were escorted by the police and sent back home.
…
The bus ride back to the city was strangely silent, a stark contrast to the chaotic energy of the trip there.
'...'
Carrie remained seated next to Lief, but she wasn't looking out the window.
She was slumped in her seat, staring at her own hands, which she nervously twisted in her lap.
"Lief, I'm so sorry," she finally said, her voice so low it was barely audible over the bus engine. "Last night... I didn't do anything. I couldn't help you at all. I just... stayed there, hiding and scared…"
Lief turned his head, his expression softening when he saw the genuine guilt on her face. "Hey, don't you dare think that," he told her calmly. "Last night was a completely different level of crazy. It's not something anyone should have to participate in. Besides, you've just started. Your power needs time." He gave her a reassuring smile. "Believe me, you'll be stronger. We'll have plenty of opportunities to fight side by side."
A mix of relief and shame colored Carrie's cheeks, but she nodded determinedly, holding onto that promise.
Just then, as Lief looked past her, toward the window glass, a familiar figure materialized in the reflection of the rapidly passing scenery.
Airam's ethereal face looked at him urgently.
"Lief, you have a problem at home," the specter's voice sounded clear in his mind. "That nanny your parents hired... she was from a cult, and Lillith had a confrontation with them last night."
!
Lief's relaxed expression instantly vanished, replaced by an icy seriousness. He turned his head slightly, moving away from Carrie so she couldn't read his lips, and asked in an almost inaudible whisper: "Is Lillith alright? She can handle it, right?"
"She's fine, yes... but..." Airam seemed to hesitate. "Let's just say... she might have gotten a little over-excited. You'd better get home as soon as possible."
Lief nodded, and Airam's image automatically faded from the glass. He took a second to compose himself before turning back to Carrie, forcing a casual tone that sounded a bit strained.
"Carrie, it looks like I have to take care of some urgent matters at home as soon as we arrive. I'll walk you to your place first, and then I'll head to mine."
Carrie felt a pang of disappointment; the normalcy of the trip was broken. But she nodded without asking questions. She was starting to sense that there was a whole universe of dangerous and secret things around Lief.
She chose to trust him, clinging to the hope that the day would come when she could truly stand by his side, and not just hidden.
When the bus finally stopped at the city station, Lief walked her to her front door.
He waited for her to go in and lock up before turning around and starting to walk toward his own house.
________
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