The Devil Next Door

89

The Huntress returned to the place she remembered.

It was a lair.

A lair she had once shared with the man, but long ago for she could not scent herself there. She immediately set about marking the place with her urine, her blood, her scat until her smell was everywhere and those that dared come here would know, would sense the warning and the danger and flee.

She brought in meat and stuffed it in nooks and crannies where it would season and age properly. She salted several hides, brought in leaves and sticks and brush for the nest. Then she brought in the carcass of a freshly-killed man. She set out her collection of knives that she had scavenged. Knives for scraping and boning, skinning and slitting.

When the man returned he would see these things.

He would smell her upon them.

He would know this was his lair.

When things were ready, the Huntress went back out into the night. Already the horizon was stained with indigo. The sun would be up soon and she knew the man would come here to lair. He had to. He would be drawn here as she was.

The Huntress moved off into the night.

For one last kill, one last feast of blood to give thanks to the moon goddess above with an offering of meat and death…