"We did it."
Deena, Sam and Josh remained as if struck by lightning, standing on the spot, with blank minds.
The Goode family?
That family acclaimed for being blessed by God, that represents all the glory and dreams of Shadyside?
"How...?" Josh's voice cracked, unable to process the historical betrayal.
"You seem surprised."
Nick smiled, but there was no joy in his gesture, only condescension.
He distractedly wiped the bone in his hand with the sleeve of his uniform.
"People need to believe in something, kids. They need to believe that there is a place where evil does not enter and I am the one who keeps the lights on."
"In 1666, my ancestor, Nick, understood a fundamental truth that you ignore: you cannot have light without darkness."
"It was a simple exchange. A name. A blood offering every few years. In exchange... peace. Prosperity. Power."
"It is not bad luck," said Nick, gently shaking his head. "It is a system. Your poverty, your sadness, all that blood spilled in the streets... it is not an accident. It is the fuel. Shadyside has to suffer for us to be in glory."
His words were driven like frozen knives into the hearts of the three.
So that was it...
It turns out that the suffering of Shadyside for centuries, the blood in the mall, in the camp, in the hospital... was not the work of a vengeful witch.
It was a system! A bloody, industrial and calculated sacrifice, designed to drain the life from their town and feed the success of a single family.
"And Sarah Fier?" asked Deena with hatred. "What about her?"
"Oh, Sarah..." Nick let out a soft, nostalgic laugh, and threw the bone back into the hole with absolute disdain. "She was necessary collateral damage. She discovered the truth, just like you. Solomon offered her power, but she chose morality."
"It was a brilliant maneuver." He said with admiration, "A lie so perfect that it has lasted three hundred years. You have been chasing ghosts, dying to break a curse that never existed, while we built a paradise."
He made a vague gesture toward the figures surrounding him.
"They are not random monsters, Deena. They are my family's shield. The devil allows me to bring them back to protect the secret. Past and present, united to secure the future."
Nick's friendly smile disappeared completely. His face turned into a mask of stone, the face of the true monster of Shadyside.
"No one can know the truth," he said in a frigid voice. "The pact requires silence."
He looked at Deena directly in the eyes.
"And I am afraid you make too much noise, Deena Johnson."
The truth... the bloody truth, had been completely revealed.
Deena, Josh and Sam felt the ground seeming to disappear beneath their feet.
All their efforts, the deaths of their friends, the terror lived in the hospital and in the school... none of that mattered.
They had been fighting against a scam, a corrupt system perfected for three centuries.
They were puppets. And the strings had always been in the hands of the Sheriff.
"Why...?" Josh's voice trembled, trying to find logic where there was none. "Why confess all this to us if you are going to kill us?"
"..."
Nick looked at them with a calmness.
"Because it does not matter what you know..." he replied shrugging his shoulders. "No one is going to believe that the respectable Sheriff is a killer. History is written by the winners, Josh. And when dawn breaks, I will still be the hero and you will be just another Shadyside tragedy."
His smile disappeared. He was already bored with the conversation.
"End this."
All the motionless monsters moved at the same time!
The Camp Nightwing Killer raised his axe, emitting a guttural growl, and charged with unstoppable violence toward Josh.
Ruby Lane emerged from the darkness behind Sam, humming her melody softly while raising the straight razor, seeking the jugular.
Skull Mask, Billy Barker, The Milkman, The Pastor... the horde of nightmares lunged toward the center. And in the middle of them all, the main target, the real threat to the Goode legacy: Deena!
The shadow of death gave them no time even to breathe.
"Run!"
...
Second floor.
"Lief..."
"I know."
…
Just as death was descending upon Josh...
Zoom
A selective and crushing gravity fell over the hallway.
The axe, which had already traveled almost its entire trajectory, stopped dead with a violence that made the handle vibrate. The edge remained suspended less than a centimeter from Josh's forehead.
The Camp Nightwing Killer roared while his muscles tensed to the limit and his veins seemed about to burst, but it was useless.
No matter how much brute force he applied, he could not advance even a millimeter.
At the same time, the straight razor stopped just as it was beginning to press against the skin of Sam's throat.
A trickle of blood barely welled up, but the cut did not go deeper.
Deena, who had closed her eyes waiting for the impact of the horde, felt the ground stop shaking.
Upon opening them... she saw them static!
The monsters running toward her had remained frozen, trapped in a photograph.
Time had not stopped, but movement had died.
In that nightmare hallway, the only thing breathing freely were the three young people and Nick.
Shock ran through Nick.
"What happened...?"
The word escaped him, stripped of the confidence he had maintained.
The extreme shock made him turn his head from side to side, until his eyes rose instinctively toward the second floor.
That was where he finally found them: two human figures on the railing.
"Who are you?"
Lief did not answer, he simply leaned on the railing and with an impulse jumped and let himself fall.
He glided through the air, straightened his body halfway and landed on the floor with the lightness of a feather.
Without granting even half a second of attention, a slender silhouette immediately followed Lief's trail.
Jennifer launched herself, landing with a dazzling elegance right by his side.
"..."
Lief dedicated a second to sweeping his gaze over all the subjects who were immobilized before resting his cold eyes on Nick's face.
"Hey, Sheriff, have you never seen the movies?"
"So much chatter, and even coming out to give explanations that no one cares about... don't you know that villains die from talking too much? It is a basic cliché."
"..."
Deena, Sam, and Josh, who seconds before had felt the cold breath of death on the napes of their necks, looked up at the stranger with an intoxicating mixture of incredulity.
Nick's face darkened, he stared fixedly at Lief and squeezed a few words between his teeth: "But what the hell are you saying?! Who are you?"
It was not only irritation he felt, but an involuntary repulsion, for he could perceive that the subject emanated a presence that was unbearably scorching to him... an aura of absolute and vibrant purity.
"You ask who I am?" Lief, ignoring the hostility that saturated the air, widened his smile with brazen confidence.
"We are just some Demon Hunters passing by here."
________
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