Chapter One
Tarni, 1986
Running on the still-hot pavement with sneakers worn threadbare from misuse, Tarni quickly realized that she should have grabbed some with more substance. As it stood, she'd barely make it another mile before she'd have to stop and rest, hoping she wouldn't get sores on the bottoms of her aching feet. The grumbling in her stomach added to her misery, and she wished she had the guts to hitchhike instead of following the highway north on foot.
In the dead of night.
Tarni couldn't risk travel by day. Too many vehicles on the road, too many do-gooders who would see a teenager and stop to help—or stop to harm. There were plenty of perverts ready to take advantage of yet another runaway. At least at night, Tarni could jog along the pavement and when hearing a car or truck coming up behind her, have time to duck into the swampy woods waiting for them to pass.
Remembering the all too recent incident when, as an entering freshman in high school, senior Danny Kowalski pulled her into the boys’ bathroom then shoved his hand up her skirt made Tarni grind her teeth. Even as she resisted, Danny pinned her up against a stall and grabbed her throat, crushing his lips painfully on hers. The revulsion and rage inside warred with the forbidden—use of magic against humans—until Tarni snapped, refusing to submit to such treatment. With her free hand she grasped Danny’s wrist and slammed her magic into him. He went down, and she was rescued by a nameless boy who shoved her out of there and back to the relative safety of the hallway.
She never did thank that boy.
After one more confrontation where Danny all but accused her of being a witch, the lousy punk kept his distance—but so did everyone else in school. Word of her “strangeness” spread like wildfire.
“Hey, freak!” or “Here comes the spooky nerd!” shadowed her until she’d run home crying.
Her mom, Jenny, pulled Tarni out a week later, and she gladly homeschooled until she graduated. The novel and wonderful world of self-education opening her eyes to just how Lord of the Flies the unnatural, artificial environment of a public American high school truly was. It gave Tarni a jaded look on society she carried with her from that day forward. Especially the hypocrisy of it all. Pushing of agendas and expecting the kids to not shun authority, yet mimic the imagery pounded daily into their heads by movies and magazines and peer pressure to be popular. Society seemed like a slick, fake, corporate-sponsored march to create mindless minions who were obsessed with sex, money, college, careers, and getting ahead at any cost. Money, greed, power and the proverbial “sex sells.”
“I’m not afraid of sex,” she grumbled to herself. “I just want no part of it. Not yet. I have too much to do.”
As a siren, she resigned herself to the fact she’d more than likely have to use her wiles to get things from men and figured somewhere along the way, losing her virginity would happen. Tarni didn’t see it as the big deal humans seemed to make of it. She just couldn’t imagine getting so excited over a guy that she’d willingly go “all the way.” She had different plans.
I’m going to rule the world. If Madonna can do it, so can I, thought Tarni. Sex would just be one tool to get there. But I will do it on my terms and to advance MY agenda.
Right now, Tarni had other pressing matters with which to attend. She couldn’t worry about sex or outlandish celebrities—or bad experiences from her past. She only had a small stash of money that she needed to be frugal with; it would be the only funds she’d have until she settled in a new place. She barely took anything, so quickly did she make her escape and decide to head as far away from Florida as her legs could take her. She had to hurry before someone in her family found her and dragged her back to her father’s compound kicking and screaming the entire way—or worse—fighting to the death to remain free.
Tarni had been traveling for two full days.
She was still in Florida.
She couldn’t risk buying a car in all cash...that would raise too many eyebrows. And how would she register it? The entire point was to run away, get a new identity, and remain hidden from discovery. So, for now, it's walking. Plus, she didn’t have that much in savings that she’d be willing to blow on a car.
Another violent tummy vibration caused Tarni to pause. Removing the knapsack from her back, she grimaced as a rhinestone caught in her lengthy black hair. Rummaging around, she came up with a half-eaten Whatchamacallit chocolate bar that was a little mushy from her body heat. It would do, however.
It would have to.
She refused to spend a dime. For now, she’d steal candy bars and hope for the best.
Taking a bite brought her right back to her eleventh birthday and the first time she'd ever tasted her favorite treat. Jenny had brought home a birthday gift all wrapped up with a pretty bow, and sitting beside it, taped to the wrapping paper, was a Whatchamacallit candy bar. It was 1978, and Hershey had just premiered their new chocolate treat to accolades from the neighborhood children where they lived. Her youngest cousin, Adelaide, her favorite of all the cousins, came to visit the tiny North Carolina town where Tarni and her mom and little sister, Kimberly, had settled, from her neighboring town of Sweet Briar, Georgia, and gave her a taste one day. Tarni had begged her mother for the delicacy ever since.
The sensation of biting into that candy bar for the first time almost overshadowed the more significant gift her mother brought her. A tiny record player and a stack of used 45s—most of them disco—with the occasional rock and Top 40 single thrown in. They must’ve belonged to her mother's brother, her Uncle Buddy.
Tarni could remember playing "Hopelessly Devoted to You" and "Heart of Glass" over and over that year. She also remembered eating her body weight in Whatchamacallits—she has an overactive metabolism, and an entire box of those yummy bars wouldn’t make a dent in her waistline. She could now easily subside on stolen chocolate from convenience stores and would thrive. Snickering a little, she realized her human counterparts would hate her for this.
As good as the chocolate was, however, the record player gave her the most joy. Tarni would sing her heart out while the 45 went round and round, but it never lasted long since her mother would rush in and beg her to stop.
"You know you cannot sing, child. Not here. Not where anyone can hear you!"
Tarni knew it wasn't due to a lack of keeping in tune or any other such nonsense. Hadn't she amazed both of her parents when she was barely four years old and did a grand job of imitating Judy Garland when the annual broadcast of The Wizard of Oz came on the television? Her father, for once, seemed pleased by his daughter... even if it was temporary. After all, he almost had an even dozen—and not a boy in sight.
No, singing was a talent all of her sisters possessed or would have had their vocal cords remained unaltered. Oh, they could still carry a tune, but they sounded like a boozy jazz singer with a three-pack-a-day habit.
Sirens had to give up their singing voices—and sultry speaking voices for that matter—to prevent one of them from going rogue and tempting humans to do horrible things. Eons ago, sirens would involve themselves in human affairs with abandon. Now, ever since the paranormal world and the many Breed evolved and formed a central organization, The Order of Origin, to keep those inclined to do evil in check, her kind had suffered as a result.
Unfairly, as far as Tarni was concerned.
Having escaped her fate, which is why she is now on the run, Tarni avoided the torture of losing her natural voice, thanks to her mother. Jenny hid both of her daughters for years, trying to prevent the operation. Her crafty mother refused to subject Tarni and her younger sister, Kimberly, to the atrocity of vocal aphonia—cutting and scarring the vocal cords with a magical knife. So one day, Jenny left and didn't return until they were older—past the age one usually had the surgery. No one in her family questioned their disappearance, for her father often went away looking for another nubile female to impregnate for months on end—especially since his witch wife gave him two additional and highly disappointing female offspring. So Jenny going off on her own didn’t raise any eyebrows.
Eventually, however, Jenny mistakenly returned to Florida, having run low on funds, yet lived in relative harmony with her estranged spouse and his daughters all throughout Tarni’s pre-teen and teenaged years. It wasn’t until her elder half-siblings realized both she and Kimberly were unaltered, and they ordered the procedure, that things became bleak. Tarni never did discover what triggered her sisters to suddenly scrutinize the mother and daughter trio.
Ironically, her half sisters work for the very organization whose sole purpose is to hunt down renegades and eradicate them, one by one. The Biodag, in The Order of Origin—a conglomerate of paranormal Breed police who try and keep order in a world hidden from humans—a paranormal world. Those very humans would panic if they realized the supernatural were among them, should they discover it.
The Biodag reprimanded Jenny and imprisoned her, and Kimberly underwent the magical knife first. Kimberly survived her ordeal. Tarni fought back. She used her dark witch powers to slam magic into anyone and everyone in their attempts to hold her down—and escaped, never looking back.
While all of this occurred, and unbeknownst to Tarni, Jenny lost her life at the hands of a murderous traitor—her own husband. Torrent Danu had already taken another wife, something that was encouraged in the siren world. Tarni lost count of the wives he'd had before her mother. She discovered his treachery upon escaping the hospital ward where Kimberly lay in miserable recovery. It was all anyone was gossiping about.
His betrayal was the catalyst for Tarni choosing a renegade life over conformity.
She did it with Kimberly’s blessing, and the pain of separation from her beloved sister left a dry ache in her throat, even as her thoughts turned to Jenny Danu.
Oh, Mom. Suddenly unable to finish her chocolate, Tarni swallowed the last of it along with the sob that threatened to escape when contemplating the death of her unfortunate mother. Jenny did not deserve to die, to be murdered by the man with whom she bore two children.
Tarni couldn't prove it was Torrent that took her mother's life, but she knew. She heard the gossip and rumors. She knew his foul heart, his depraved quest for a son, and his disregard for the female of their species. And someday, Tarni would prove it and see him lose everything.
I will avenge my mother.
It was a promise Tarni made, and the driving force behind her mission to set out on her own, escape the fate that staying would bring about, and begin a life on her terms, even if it meant she became an outlaw.
A small price to pay for being a half-breed, unwanted child of a murderous bastard.
“I need to make a name for myself. I need to be rich and powerful. Only then can I destroy my father. And for that—I need fame. And I will have it.” Tarni whispered the words that were carried away by the wind, as the bugs buzzed around her, and frogs sang their song into the night.
Half-breed. It was the reason her father pursued Jenny in the first place, as he assumed a dark witch who held such power could surely give him a male heir especially since she was also part siren. Jenny had escaped the cutting because it was so far back in her lineage as to not be an issue among her people, although she never sang, never used her voice. When Jenny produced two daughters instead of a boy, Tarni’s father became disinterested in his wife and his girls.
I wasn't enough for that dirtbag. Tarni thought to herself as she ran off to the side of the highway. I’m going to put him out of my mind until I am ready to make my triumphant return. He’s already a dead man.
She'd just made it into the safety of the woods as the lights of a vehicle crested the hill behind her. Crouching low, she waited for the car to pass, then crept back out and continued on her way.
The irony was, dark witch power was passed from mother to daughter by chance and had Torrent Danu bothered to notice his young daughter, he might have realized Tarni possessed the dark force. Combined with her siren song, Tarni could be one of the most powerful beings in the paranormal world. Not that she cared. Tarni just wanted to be human. Or live in their world, anyway. Just like The Little Mermaid, Tarni snickered to herself in a moment of silliness, then sobered, and look how well that turned out for her. As much as she loved that fairytale, the ending never failed to produce countless tears.
Tarni had big plans. She intended to become a famous singer.
She didn’t how long it took her to reach this goal. Time was on her side. Sirens lived thousands of years. She was the only female left in her family uncut. If it took her thirty-one years of unsuccessful attempts only to become famous in her thirty-second, what did that matter in the grand scheme of things? Either way her father would still be out there, and she’d still destroy him.
But it was time for Tarni to live her life.
It was too late for Kimberly, and that was her only regret.
Jenny ran away with the girls when they were four and twenty-two months, Kimberly just out of diapers. They grew up witch, with countless human overtones. Tarni was a dark witch and wore that badge proudly, yet knew nothing, really, about being a siren—her mother made sure of it. The only thing the siren world gave her was the inability to sing in an area where she could be overheard, and she mourned her inability to sing aloud.
My voice is stellar, she reflected glumly.
When Tarni was little she discovered just how dangerous her siren power could be. And it made her cautious. How was she supposed to know singing a lullaby to Kimberly would result in her much older witch cousin, Dustin, inviting her to 'snuggle in bed with him a bit?' She was too young to realize she'd enchanted him to the point he’d lost all reason and would have assaulted her given a chance. Thankfully, her Uncle Buddy found her confused and naked in Dustin's bedroom before anything else happened.
Tarni was eight. Dustin was seventeen. He got shipped off to the Army after countless magical spells were performed to alter his memory and remove as much of the glamour as her mother’s people could.
It was humiliating.
After that, Tarni promised her mother she'd not sing unless she knew for certain she was alone and out of hearing of others who might overhear and become ensnared. Now, in light of her current situation, the thought of becoming a famous singer made Tarni laugh. The irony of it all. Such a renegade!
So that was what she was doing—embracing a vagabond life at nineteen years of age—running as far away from Florida as she could. Tarni even changed her name in the process, taking the surname Vanderzee, which means of the sea—a name she’d discovered far back in her mother’s genealogy that had belonged to a distant siren. Choosing her own path left Tarni thrilled to be just another runaway on the streets of America—albeit one who could enchant and influence like nobody's business.
She wasn't afraid.
Jenny didn't raise a fool. Nor would she have. Witch lessons in human weaponry, along with spellcasting and magic control, were part of Tarni's waking life. Siren magic aside, Tarni knew she could handle what the big, bad world would throw at her since she'd decided a long time ago embracing her dark witch powers came with perks.
Which she's welcomed with unbridled pleasure.
Tarni liked having dark spells at her beck and call.
She wasn’t evil, however. Tarni decided to tread lightly and cautiously use only the minimal amount of her powers—just enough to keep her from injury and harm. She believed she could avoid the temptation of her strength and all it could bring. Tarni felt every siren should have that choice, and someday she would return—powerful, influential, and wealthy—and prove it. Then change the siren world for the better.
At least that's what Tarni told herself. Right now, she needed to find some new shoes...her feet were killing her!
