The High Priestess - The Darkest Desires Series

IV

E

cho stretched in the morning light. Mid-morning really. Late afternoon if you were going to be picky. After she awoke, Echo contemplated on what Archer might tell her to do with regards to the situation. After only a quick think, she was sure his only advise would be, 'Keep them occupied. Keep them out'. Which really meant, do nothing and allow the police-force of greater Rippling to trip over their own feet. They were incompetent like that.

She'd recognised Detective Hale when he'd arrived but hadn't said anything. It was unsurprising he didn't recognise her. She had only been involved in one case and he hadn't been invited in on it. Thus, they'd never interacted, and he'd become a change man since then. She remembered him full of focus and drive, running around the station solving cases. The man she saw this morning was broken and tired. Tired of life no doubt. Echo didn't blame him. Human life sucked.

Rolling out of bed, she walked down to the shower tucked away in the corner of her room, loving the feeling of the heat scorching her back. By the time she was dressed and ready, the officer that had succumbed to Samantha's thrall and happily waltzed into her bed in the middle of the day had come to his senses. His clothes were no longer on the floor while his wedding band had been plucked back up from the bedside table. Echo had only a fleeting thought of what he might tell his wife when he returned home suddenly jobless, and without a scrap of dignity... but then it was just fleeting.

"Mother Fucker!" Echo screamed in the empty apartment as a streak of black pounced on her feet from the shadows. Wilson, her cat, his sleek black coat making him invisible in the dim apartment, was a beast. He scrambled up her pant leg, biting and scratching as he went despite her swatting at him. Most nights the only way Echo knew he was there was when his eyes became iridescent in a flash of light. She didn't feed him, nor had she ever treated him like a pet. Wilson was an alley cat with a mansion to crash in. His viciousness and wild antics were one of the reasons she'd kept him in the first place. That and he'd eaten his siblings to say alive when tossed onto the streets in a box, earning him a gold star in Echo's books. Grabbing him hard by the scruff of the neck, Echo flung the howling fur ball across the room. He bounced over the bed and rolled into a large, oversized plant that occupied a corner. Echo didn't even look to see if he would get up. Tougher things had tried to kill him than a room toss.

"Little shit." She hissed checking her leathers trousers for claw holes. "Next time I'll make you into a clutch bag!" Luckily the Gucci gold leather was without a nick, so the vagrant lived another day.

Walking to the door, Echo was deciding how best to spend the dying hours of the day before the House grew back into life. That was until she found a small, fluttering piece of paper stuck to the door of her room with an imbedded knife. Underneath a small leather pouch hung, its condense clinking as she gripped it in her hand.

All it read was:

'Used supplies. Get more.'

Only by the knife did Echo guess it was Mara's. She wasn't one to part with weapons of the pointy kind, but then she didn't ask for things either. Like much in the House, Echo was expected to just do it. Huffing a sigh, Echo grabbed her red coat, knowing by this time there would be a chill in the air, before heading out down the servant's stairwell. Leading straight to the back kitchen, and then out the front door she was out on the grounds in moments. So much easier then clambering over unconscious or dead bodies on all the different floors.

✽✽✽

Rippling wasn't a big Town; in fact it was quite small. Small enough Echo hated it, but to be fair, they hated her too. Long ago the towns people had made assumptions about her and her family; some right, a lot wrong and even more nailed right on the head.