The Devil Next Door

He was getting furious. The urine smell was female. There was no mistaking it. There were a series of scent trails laid out in the vicinity of this yard, all leading up to the darkened house before him. It was confusing. The Baron knew that it was necessary to proceed with caution, but his blood was up. The scent trail. The other delicious odor of rot. It made him feel very aggressive. He let out a low growling sound and several other males imitated him even while many of the females pulled back, suddenly concerned about the nature of this place.

They had been led here. There was no doubt of it.

But the Baron didn’t care. He was challenged. It was now a matter of territory and dominance. He would find the females who had sprayed these conflicting scents-there were several, he knew that now-and make them bow down to him.

The pack was tense.

The Baron cast several of his males forward. They peered in bushes, around the garage, pawed through flower beds. One of them made a sharp yelping sound of surprise and pleasure; he was calling to the pack. The others followed him around the garage, past the potting shed…there was a sudden cry of surprise, a crackling sound, and then a drawn-out whine of agony.

The Baron rushed forward.

His male was down in a pit about ten feet, the walls of black earth carefully squared off. The male cried out a few times, shook, and went still. The entire pack smelled his death, his terror, the blood trace he left in the air. Whoever had dug the pit, had lined its bottom with four-foot stakes that were sharpened to lethal perfection. The young male was impaled upon them. They were thrust through his groin, belly, and throat. One pierced his arm and another thrust from his wide open mouth.

The Baron let forth a bloodcurdling cry that echoed throughout the neighborhood. The other males, again, imitated him. This was an insult to the pack, a blood crime that would have to be avenged.

Much more cautious now, the Baron crept towards the house on all fours…

81

Maddie tasted the blood in her mouth and savored the pain.

She had marked this man as her own. She would mate with him and perhaps produce offspring…but he was defiant, he was willful and arrogant. She would not have that. If she brought him in for a breeder and spared him the knife, then there were things expected. She would not be rejected.

Not here in her own lair.

Not by this pig who spurned her offered meat.

In the hazy corridors of her mind she could remember other men, shadowy figures without faces, and never had they rejected her like this. She always had her fill when the season was upon her.

Grinding her teeth, she watched the man by the fire. He was well-muscled, firm, he would have made a very good breeder. Too wiry for the eating, but that did not mean he wouldn’t know the knife. As she sharpened a carving blade against a dull stone she knew there were ways to break pigs like him.

The heat inside her was almost unbearable…pulsing, wet, hungry. It would need to be fed and if he would not feed her then another would be found. But maybe this one. Maybe if she punished him, cut a few things off, let her daughters toy with him a bit.

Then he would beg for what she offered.

Because it was his and she had already selected. He would fill her needs or she would flay him alive…

82

Wearing the shadows, Angie’s tribe remained hidden.

For some time they had been trailing the Baron’s pack. It was not too difficult. At first, Angie had been impressed by the Baron…his strength, his cruelty, his knowledge of hunting and stalking. But the more he killed, the more drunk with power he became and the more careless was his leadership.

Angie’s tribe had watched with amusement as the Baron’s pack waged war with the other pack on Providence Street. He had lost the majority of his hunters. His bravado was stronger than his wisdom. Such was the way with males.

Now they had been drawn to the house.

Angie had known it was a trap for she had been past the place several times that night and each time did not linger. But the Baron had been drawn in effortlessly. Just by a hanging bag of rotting meat and dead fish outside the back door. It drew males from blocks around. This combined with the crisscrossing female urine scents was enough to drive any male wild.

And so it had.

As Angie watched, she saw the females of the pack hang back. They knew instinctively that the yard was not a good place to be. But the Baron would not submit to their fears just as he would not submit to his own.

The tribe waited to see what would happen next.

That there was death in the house, Angie knew without question. Her only concern was that the females who lived there would get the Baron before she did. And she needed to bring him down.

Even now, she could taste the juice of his heart in her mouth…

83

Louis heard screams and instantly jerked out of his fugue.