The Devil Next Door Read Online Free

replaced by something cold, plotting, and atavistic. Maddie recognized them as her brood, her young, her daughters, but there was no emotion at this: the two bitches were not to be trusted. Not yet.
    Hissing at them, Maddie sniffed the air they brought with them.
    She smelled urine. Blood.
    It was a satisfying odor, one that calmed her somewhat. They smelled of the hunt. Not like others out there, not soapy and repugnant. She waited to see if the bitches would challenge her kill, try to take it. But they did nothing but stare. They did not run. There was no fear on them. Just hesitation. They were both naked. They had taken needles and poked their breasts, stomachs, chests, and arms with them, creating a bleeding series of welts that ran in decorative, concentric patterns. The elaborate scarification was symbolic, tribal, and resembled the intricate cicatrisation of certain African bush clans.
    Maddie liked it.
    If these two bitches were to hunt as part of her band, she would decorate her flesh likewise.
    The bitches moved in closer, intrigued.
    Maddie let them, watching them. Like her, they were pale, streaked with grime and gore, leaves and sticks braided into their matted hair.
    She hissed at them.
    They did not make any threatening moves.
    Maddie motioned them in with the knife. They squatted by the carcass with her. They laid fingertips upon the kill, touching, feeling, instinctively probing muscle mass and fat deposit, knowing which would be spitted first.
    Maddie swallowed. “Down…” she said, her voice dry and scraping, the words difficult to pronounce. “Take the kill down…below…”
    The bitches did not argue.
    Each gripping an ankle, grunting and gasping, their young scarred bodies rippling with muscle, they dragged their father’s corpse away across the carpeting. Maddie watched them. She was pleased. Her kill was made and her clan established. It was good. Moaning some long-forgotten tribal melody deep in her throat, she retreated into the corner and defecated there on the plush sea-green nap. When she was done, she sniffed what she had produced.
    She heard the bitches dragging the carcass below to the cellar.
    Its head thumped on each step.
    Sniffing the air for intruders and poachers, ever aware of danger, Maddie followed the scent trail of the carcass to the cellar door and below. When she got down in the cool, damp darkness, she schooled the bitches.
    Together, they dressed out the carcass…
     
    5
    The scream started out small in his guts and now it was rolling upward, gaining mass and volume along the way. And Louis was going to set it free and mainly because he didn’t really think he had a choice. Maybe he would have, too, but another Greenlawn police car rolled up behind the other one. The guy that got out was thin and tall, white hair poking around the edges of his cap. His mouth was hooked in a crooked scowl.
    “ What gives here?” he said.
    Louis finally felt some sanity coming back. He knew this guy. His name was Warren and he was a sergeant or something, an old hand on the force. Louis knew that he handled the safety programs at the schools and was always in the newspaper involved in some civic or charitable organization. Warren also sang in the church choir over at St. Stephen’s and had a hell of a set of pipes on him. He was okay. Old school all the way, he’d sort this clusterfuck right out.
    “Well, it’s a real mess, Sarge,” Shaw said.
    “Let’s have it,” Warren said, pulling a cigarette from behind his ear and showing it some flame.
    So Shaw told him all about it and the whole time Warren’s eyes shifted from the stiff to Louis and it didn’t look like he cared for the looks of either. When Shaw finished, Warren just nodded.
    “They treating you okay, Mr. Shears?” he said.
    And Louis launched right into it. The re-telling of this tale sounded no better than the other one, but the evidence was all over Kojozian’s shoe and pantleg.
    “He’s got a weak stomach,”