Beautiful Voices

chapter 1

         I really wish I'd gone out with mom last night. One of the sucky things about being part siren is the incessant need to feed off of humans. And I don't mean where I chase around unsuspecting people and taking a bite out, I mean their energy, their life force and their emotions. A siren needs to allure their victims, snatch them up then sing their pretty little hearts out until the mortal is a puddle of longing and willing to do anything to please the siren. That's when she feeds, that mass of desire is a siren's fix and I'm running dangerously low.

"Ivy! Get your ass up I'm not going to say it again. Do not make me come in there!"

I pull the covers over my head wishing my mom could lose her voice for once in her life. Sadly that's kind of impossible for my kind. So I reluctantly climb out of bed and go to the bathroom. As I'm turning on the shower I hear a banging coming from my room.

"Ivy goddammit, are you up if you make me late to work again I swe__."

"I'm up god mom take a chill pill." I call out to her before she can have an aneurism.
You'd think that she'd be in a better mood after her feeding. But after dad died it's been rare to see her in a good mood and today is no exception.
I wait and listen until I hear her stomp her 130 pound frame down the hall. Sighing I look at my mirror which was starting to fog over. I wince when I see my serious case of bed head. My blonde mass which usually reached my butt was at about mid back because of the tangles. I dreadfully start running a brush through it, but when the handle breaks off and the brush gets stuck I decided to put some major conditioner in it before I even attempt to tame the beast. I move on to assess the rest of the damage that is my face knowing I'll find dark circles and bags under my baby blue eyes.
And yes I know I look like a nazi Aryan, let's get over it. One of the setbacks of being part human is that you struggle with your mortality and the sense of right and wrong, and for me they come out in the sign of nightmares,,, every. Damn. Night.
I take a shower throw on my work clothes then head down stairs. I find my mom in the kitchen shoveling a donut down her throat.
Laughing I call out to her.

"Slow down mom you're supposed to eat it not inhale it, here I'll show you."

Picking up my own donut I demonstrate by taking a slow bite out of the glazed goodness. Smirking at me she throws me her keys.

"You're driving today the dude I sired was super drunk last night and now I'm feeling his hangover."

When we feed from a mortal we call it sired because we're sirens, get it? I don't know when we started calling it that it was way before I was born, maybe it was a code word so we didn't scare mortals who knows but it happened and it stuck.

"That sucks mom, maybe next time you should pay better attention because you are what you eat." I snickered to myself.

And as she walk by she ruffled my hair. My mother was a gorgeous woman with the same colored hair as mine violet eyes, ample bosom  and a curvy body along with her being 6 feet tall. I look almost identical to my mom except for our eyes and our height while she looked like she should be walking down the Victoria Secret runway and I looked like I should be modeling for the Gap.
I barley made it past 5 feet, another difference between me and every other siren.
Sirens as a species are tall, and beautiful with amazing singing voices, some legends say we're half human half bird while other legends say we're half human half fish a.k.a mermaids. Personally I think we're neither because I've never had the urge to fly and ask for a cracker and I can only go one full lap around the community pool before I feel like I'm breathing through a straw. If it weren't for my siren genes I'd probably be morbidly obese.
I drive my mom to her work, she's a server at a strip club, when you move around a lot it takes up a lot of money and it means shitty jobs because respectable employers don't want to hire someone who can up and leave town at any notice so mom gravitates to the more looked down upon jobs. Thankfully it doesn't bother her much because she can sire easily any point of the day. For me though I work a family diner in town as a buser, even though my mom asked me to work with her I refused not willing to degrade myself that way, I probably wouldn't care if I was a full siren like my mom. she couldn't understand why I was so offended when she asked me but she doesn't understand what it feels like to be human so I don't hold it against her. I'm just glad I wasn't born into a species that eats their young. I pull into the Jamie Joe's Exotica parking lot my mom gives me a wet smooch on the mouth then hops off the rusted jeap does a weird techno dance in front of the car then sprints at full speed for the employee entrance. I laugh then head for my more conservative job.