Page 2 of Tara's Warriors

Giving Jillian her best crooked smile, Tara said, “Come, then. You can help me pour the witches brew for our groggy pack of bloodthirsty maidens.”

A few grumbledayesassured her that witches brew—coffee—would be met with pleasure from her crew. Her friends pulled themselves from their tents, and more than a few bloodshot eyes winced in the bright morning light. Their crew was a large one, with over thirty current members. Most of the time, the women were teachers, waitresses, farmers, and lawyers. During Renaissance Festival season, though, they were ‘The Sirens.’

And it was hella-fun to be a pirate. The Festival paid them in food and drink to wander around in character—which was great, considering Tara would have done it for free. These women were a blast, and the feeling of sisterhood and family bolstered her like a shot of caffeine straight to the heart.

Speaking of caffeine, some of her pirates looked a little grumpy. Not everyone was a morning person like Tara. They’d set up camp the night before, and the adults stayed up much later than the kids, visiting various bonfires of different cast and crew members. People traveled from all over the US to come to the Renaissance Festival, and Tara had been happy to see so many people she knew last night at the bonfire. Her throat was still a little sore from their reunion singalong. While not everyone in the Sirens could carry a tune, many could, and those who couldn’t sing could still shout out the chorus of their pirate drinking tunes.

Humming a melody from one of her favorite songs, Tara waved to people walking by as she made her way to what amounted to their camp’s chuckwagon. Melissa, a Siren and successful lawyer from Savannah, drove her giant, fabulous tour bus to the location every year and opened her kitchen for the Sirens. While she might be one of the best defense attorneys in the southeast normally, most didn’t know she was also an amazing short-order cook, thanks to working in Tara’s restaurant as a teenager. Like most of Tara’s friends from high school, Melissa had left little Tupelo Creek as soon as the ink was dry on her diploma.

“Knock knock,” Tara called into the open doorway of the big black and blue bus. “Permission to board?”

“Come on up, Captain!” Melissa yelled from inside in her terrible ‘pirate’ accent. “Yer always welcome.”

Jillian giggled as Tara groaned. “Melissa, we talked about this. No more pirate accent from you.”

As they came up the stairs, Tara grinned at a pouting Melissa. In her late thirties, the curvy woman with a mass of fluffy brown curls lifted her chin with a sniff. She wore an amazing black and green leather pirate outfit that dipped low in front to show off a more than generous amount of cleavage. All the Sirens tended to show a lot of boob—they joked that it hypnotized the men and made them run their ships into rocks. Being a Siren meant owning your sexuality, and Tara was big on women feeling safe and confident enough to dress as sexy or modest as they wanted.

“Jillibean!” Melissa shouted as she set down the wooden spoon she’d been using to stir something on the stove. “Come here, my wee bonnie lass!”

The inside of the bus was as luxurious as the exterior hinted it would be, with a large living area made all the bigger by an extendable wall. A good sized TV played the morning news, the hosts bright chatter a background noise to the familiar sounds and smells of bacon frying in a pan.

“Don’t do a Scottish accent, either, Mel,” Tara joked as Jillian flew past her and into Melissa’s waiting arms.

“Look at how big you are!” Melissa set Jillian back down on her feet while Tara took a seat at the table in the pulled-out section of the bus. “My goodness, you’ll be taller than me soon.”

“Auntie Mel, everyone is taller than you.” Jillian giggled.

Winking at the little girl, Melissa returned to stirring the pot while Jillian slid onto the bench next Tara at the dining table. “At four foot eleven—”

Melissa’s words cut off in a strangled choke as every instinct inside of Tara flared to life, telling her she was in great danger. Something—a terrible sense of foreboding mixed with blind fear—struck Tara with the force of a battering ram. Out of pure instinct, she pulled Jillian into her arms and held her tight as a terrible, painful vibration seemed to simmer the air around them. It was what she imagined being in a microwave would be like, a boiling from the inside out.

There was a pause, brief enough for her to draw a breath before the pressure came back in a second wave accompanied by a horrible vibrating roar.

When it faded, she braced for another wave, curving her body around Jillian as if she could somehow protect her.

Fear coursed through her veins, but she hesitantly lifted her head when thirty rapid beats of her heart went by and nothing else happened.

The first thing she became aware of was the ringing in her ears, like she’d been to a heavy metal concert and stood too close to the massive speakers.

A moment later, Jillian trembling in her arms cut through her shock. She leaned back, holding Jillian by the shoulders as she studied her granddaughters teary face.

“Jillibean, are you okay?”

Her voice sounded muffled to her ears, but she could hear Jillian’s keening sob as she nodded.

“I’m okay, what was that Grammy? What happened?”

Holding Jillian close, she looked over for Melissa and found the woman sitting on the ground next to the stove, clutching her hand. The skin on the back of her hand and her thumb was bright pink, and Tara sucked in a breath at the sight of what was probably a painful burn. Her whole body felt like mush, but she managed to reposition Jillian so she could scoot past her.

“Melissa, are you okay?”

The woman gave her a dazed look, clutching her hand away from her body. “No.”

It was hard to move with Jillian clinging to her side, but she managed to get Melissa up off the floor and over to the sink.

When she turned it on, only the smallest trickle of water came out.

“What the hell?”

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