A Tale of Two Sirens Ch. 1

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A Tale of Two Sirens

By Dustin Carter and Loki

Olivia-Munn as the real Danielle.jpg ww.png

Author’s note: There are some instances lines in this story that are in a foreign language. It’s French, to be exact. If you want to know what they mean, please look them up yourself, as I’d rather not translate myself because I don’t have that great a grasp on the French language. There is someone I’m talking to who is helping me in the correct usage of the words, but if I misuse any of them (in this case, the word is “putain”), the fault lies entirely with me.

The pictures are of Olivia Munn and Phoebe Tonkin, respectively, so all related copyrights and such belong to them.

This one's going to be a short one, just a little intro to get the ball rolling on this series. If all goes according to plan, it won't take anywhere near aas long to finish as (Un)Life did. Hope you all enjoy! Thanks to Bibliophage and the rest of my beta readers/editors.

June 28th 1996: Early Evening...

I thought I could deal with just faking my way through this until things got better for me, but I was wrong. It had been a couple of months since I had woken up both as a female and a vampire when I had previously been neither. To say that I was having a delayed reaction to it was a severe understatement. I don’t know what I was thinking when I said that I was fine with all of this. Hell, prior to that night at the Guardian, I was completely unaware of the existence of the Unseen. Never mind thinking that I might actually be inducted into their ranks.

So here I sit in my room, wearing only my panties and a tank top, curled up in a small ball and wondering when I’m going to either wake up from this dream or when the men from the “institute” (as it were) with the shiny white van are going to come for me.

“How long are you going to lay there Dani?” That would be my roommate, Darcille. Darcy, as she prefers, is also a vampire. As are all the twenty... Scratch that, eighteen girls here are vampires(Kelly had to get put down last week because she went crazy and burned one of us to death). “And how many times do I have to tell you, it’s rare for one of us to lose it like that.”

To that, I had nothing to say. I felt the mattress I had curled up on sway as Darcy climbed on and crawled over to me.

“Come on Dani. You’ve been laying there all day. You need to get up and about. It’s not good for you to be like this.” She told me as she caressed my arm in what seemed like sincere worry and concern for me.

“You want to know what’s wrong with me?” I asked her as I finally worked up the gumption to sit up.

“I’m a woman and a vampire when I wasn’t a couple of months ago, for starters. Not that I’m saying it’s a bad thing, mind you, but it’s just not me. It’s just not who I am.” I said. I proceeded to tell her about what had happened to my parents and to Jimmy and just how close I was to both of them. By the time I was finished, I was near hysterics. Damn hormones...

Darcy, bless her no longer working heart, remained silent throughout the whole thing and when I was finished, she was struggling to keep from crying.

“Oh my god... I had no idea. I’m so sorry hon.” She told me as she wrapped me up in a huge bear hug. All I could manage was a sob into her shoulder. That’s when I was surprised by a third hand on my back. When I looked, Carmilla was looking at me with a small, sad smile on her face.

“While I can’t honestly say that the pain goes away, it does get easier to deal with in time. For the time being, however, the best thing that you can do for them would be to not squander the gift I have given you, dear.” She said with that barely there French accent that drove men and boys alike absolutely crazy. “Just give it time Danielle. You’ll come to grips with it. I know you will. You’ve a strong mind and an iron will. I’ve seen it.”

“About that... I would like to talk to you a bit later tonight, in private, please. Once I’ve got my thoughts lined up straight.” I told her. “If you wouldn’t mind, of course.”

“Of course I wouldn’t mind. You know that I love you dearly, child.”

“Yeah and I do too!” Darcy chimed in and God bless her little nonfunctioning heart for it. She wasn’t the strongest, toughest, or the fastest of us or anything like that, but she had more book smarts than most of us and she had spent the last two months or so trying to get me to cheer up and help me adapt.

“Thank you for that. Seriously. I’m not too sure I want to know where I would be if y’all hadn’t shown up when y’all did.” I said, slipping into what we in the Southern Ohio / Northern Kentucky area call the “country accent” without quite realizing it until after I said it.

“You already sound the part of the southern belle, sweets. Now if only I could get you into some happier colors...” Darcy let that comment trail off under the mock glare I was giving her.

“There’s the spirit I saw in you at the Guardian. That was what made me decide to make you mine, regardless of what Wisteria might have said.” Carmilla said with a look of amusement.

“You say that like you had reservations before that.”

“I did.” She admitted simply. “But like I told you that night, I heard you singing from the roof of that apartment and I... I just knew. That and I knew that you needed help, even if you were not aware of it.”

“Kinda still do...” I started to say, but let the words die off. I wasn’t even sure what to call her as “Mother” seemed about as impersonal as “Mistress”, at least to me, and it seemed a bit rude (again, to me) to just call her by her given name like that.

“Mama?” It wasn’t until I heard Darcy start giggling, which quickly turned into full blown belly laughs, that I realized that I actually said it without meaning to. I slapped both of my hands over my mouth to keep anything else from coming out, but it was a little late. Like we said back home: ‘It doesn’t do any good to close the barn door once all the horses are already loose.’

“Hmmm...” She said as held her chin in her hand, with one finger tapping her lips. Just like the night I was turned. I, on the other hand, was fill with dread. Here was someone that had the power to completely end me, something that looked sorely tempting in spite of my recent wise cracks and temporary mood shift. “First time I’ve been called that one.”

“I like it.” She said with a small smile. “By the way, I happen to know for a fact that you didn’t feed last night, so here. Normally I wouldn’t allow this, but given the circumstances, I’ll allow it this once.”

The last she said as she places a pouch of blood on my lap and stood up.

“Let me know when you’re ready to talk tonight and I’ll be with you as soon as I can.” She told me as she glided out through the door.

“I know how you feel, love, from firsthand experience. I lost not only my parents and all but the cleverest of my friends, but I lost all of my siblings and most of my aunts, uncles, and cousins as well. All murdered during the Revolution.” She said.

“First I’ve heard of anything like this, Mother. Did you actually meet George Washington?” Darcy unabashedly blurted out. Apparently, this little bit of knowledge wasn’t all that commonly known as Darcy looked shocked at the admission.

“Wrong revolution, honey.” Mama answered with an arched eyebrow. After giving Darcy a moment of thought, I guess she decided to give the poor a girl a hint. “What kind of accent do I have?”

“So what you’re saying then is she needs a little less ‘We the People’ and a little more ‘Viva la Révolution?’” I asked. She simple nodded her head with an amused smile and I swear, the only sound I heard her make as she glided out of the room was the faint whisper of her feet across the fabric of the carpet. One of these days I was going to get her to teach me how to walk that quietly.

This realization of just how old our maker actually is made Darcy’s jaw drop. That, in turn, put an idea into my head that was too good to pass up, even if I wasn’t really in the mood for such things. The timing was just too perfect. I rearranged my expression to one of innocent curiosity as I leaned into Darcy. Quickly, I reached my thumb and pointer finger into her mouth and tugged on her tongue a couple of times before retreating from the sudden coughing, sputtering and the swats she was throwing at me.

“Hey, wait a minute... You never told her about what we found out!” Darcy exclaimed after a moment as she grabbed my shoulder and shook me around out of her excitement. By the time she realized what she was doing to me and let go, I was already feeling a bit dizzy and simply fell back onto the bed making small whimpering sounds for the comedic effect. The dismayed look of shock and worry on her face was priceless.

********V**^**^**V********

10:30 PM...

I was nervous about being caught out after curfew, even if Mama had told me that I didn’t need to. I guess I was so used to trying to stay out of trouble and away from as many of these vampires as I could that it just became a habit. Now, don’t get me wrong here. It wasn’t that I hated them or anything. It was simply that they acted so casual about becoming something other than human that it unnerved me a bit. Lost in thought, I almost passed the door to Mama’s “office”. Coming to a sudden stop, I quietly knocked on the door.

“Come in, love.” Came my new Mama’s voice from the other side. I did as she requested and took a seat opposite of her at the desk.

“Actually, I had another place in mind for our talk, darling.” She said as she stood and came around the desk to me. “Come along now.”

Taking my hand, she guided me back out of her office, then right out of the building entirely. Once in the side lawns and under the shadow of a few trees, she picked me up, laid me over her shoulder and everything seemed to go by in fast-forward until suddenly I realized we were in the parking lot of the Guardian.

“Come along now, Danielle.” She waved me up to follow her. “Come around this way.”

“Right behind you Mama.” I said as I caught up and fell into step with her. We walked around the building and through a few of the narrow alley ways behind the building before stopping in a rather convenient little hide-y-hole of sorts.

“Alright darling, what’s on your mind?” She asked.

“Well...” I started as I tried to find the right words.

“I guess what’s getting to me the most is that I don’t think I’ll ever see my family again now. As a human I could at least look forward to seeing them in the afterlife, but as a vampire?” I said, fight not to cry again. “I mean, do we even have our souls anymore?”

I don’t think she was quite expecting something like that to come out of my mouth, as she seemed to take a moment to collect her thoughts. I thought I heard her mutter something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “Pooh-tahn” (whatever that means), but I could have just been hearing things.

“Hon, the truth is that I don’t know and I have no way to ask to the ones that would, as they’re already dead.” She finally said with a sigh. “I wish I could give you more of an answer than that, but I’d be lying if I did. And I love you too much to do that to my beautiful daughter.

“I regret that I took that last hope away from you but you still have your fond memories of them, right?” She asked and I nodded in the affirmative. “Then they are still with you, no matter what you become or where you go.”

My head barely made it to her shoulder before the floodgates opened and the levies broke. I stood there, supported by possibly the only person that cared about me that knew, I mean really knew from having been there and done that, the kinds of thoughts that were going through my head.

“How long?” I asked her after what felt like forever.

“Hmm?”

“How long do I have to wait now until I find out for myself?” She remained silent after that for another moment or so.

“I’ve been alive, after a fashion, for over three hundred years now and I’m still wondering that myself darling.” She whispered into my ear.

“Thank you Mama.”

“Might I ask why you are thanking me when I could offer no answers?”

“You were honest with me about it.” I explained. “That tells me that you actually do care about me, about what I’m going through, and that this isn’t some kind of sick mental game at my expense. That means more to me right now than I know how to tell you.”

********V**^**^**V********

December 2011 4:30PM...

“Hey Dani. Don’t tell me you’re writing in that beat up old thing again.” Darcy said as she bounced in and flopped down on my bed. “You know that it always gets you down when you have to remember that kind of stuff.”

“Yeah, but it’s the only way I’ve found that I can let it go.” I answered. “Otherwise, it all gets bottled up. You remember what happened last time that got to me, right?”

“Oh God... Don’t remind me.” She said with a shiver.

“Yeah. So, I write.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Anyway, I heard a juicy rumor floating around the campus earlier. Apparently there’s some chick at one of the Karaoke joints around here that’s really good. Like competition for us kind of good.”

“Oh really now?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. “This I’ve got to see for myself. What’s her major?”

“No. She’s in the local high school with that Cindy chick you were helping a while ago.”

“This just gets better and better.” I said with a predatory smile on my face. I didn’t have anything planned for tonight and the idea of buzzing the Harper’s compound, as it were, sounded pretty fun. I’d have to wait a couple of hours for dusk before I started my game, but I could be patient for that.

********V**^**^**V********

Dusk...

Sitting in one of the large pine trees on the outer perimeter of the grounds, I watched their security make their rounds. They’ve been trying to find all of my ways in since I showed Cindy some of the easiest ways last year. They now had those locked down tighter than a chastity belt. More to their credit, they even found a few of my mays in on their own. But not all of them. I surveyed the ones left and weighed the options. Call me a show off if you want, but I decided to go for style over ease of entrance.

I slowly climbed down from my perch and walked back to my scooter. Flipping the seat up to get to the storage compartment, I withdrew the sent blocker I bought online last month. Game hunters use this stuff to hide their sent from wildlife and I’ve found that this brand works extremely well. I put the spritzer style bottle top on it and doused myself with the stuff. I checked myself after walking off a ways and confirmed that my sent had all but completely disappeared.

“Let the games begin.” I said to no one at all, a small smile playing on my lips...

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Comments

looks like a lot of fun brewing

were still getting pieces of Dani's past but we know she likes to stir the pot.
good chapter, thanks

looking like we'll be seeing

Cindy and Ashley coming in to this story before to long. This will be very interesting to watch how this story develops.

Considering

these two, the music set would be well worth watching. Of course, the competetion between them before they reach that point will be .... interesting to watch.
Hugs
Grover

A Tale of Two Sirens

Are Sirens vampires?

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

One is...

The other is a Nereid.

Peace be with you and Blessed be

Never mind me....

Daniela Wolfe's picture

Never mind me, I'm just playing a little catch up.

Good stuff, onward ho! :P


Have delightfully devious day,

That Girl!

OK..I enjoyed Dani in Singing To The Moon.!! This should be good!

alissa