The club didn’t look like much, just a squat box with a black-painted brick facade. Frowning, Phoebe leaned forward in her seat and peered at the building through the windshield. “Are you sure this is it?”
Beside her, Olivia was trying to apply lipstick, squinting at herself in the driver vanity mirror. “Yeah, this is the address. That has to be Annwn.”
“It looks like a warehouse.”
“It’s not.” Olivia wiped away a smudge of lipstick, her ornate necklaces jingling. She claimed that most of her jewelry had supernatural properties, protective auras and lucky blessings for the wearer. Phoebe thought that they were cheap knock-offs that Olivia had bought online, but she didn’t say so.
“Can’t you feel that? It’s magic,” Olivia said, and Phoebe had to admit that she felt something. It was subtle, the sensation of walking past an old, abandoned house or holding hands during a seance, but it was there. Shivering, she nodded in agreement. Olivia zipped up her makeup bag and shoved it into her purse. “Now, remember what we discussed earlier. Be careful. Not everyone can be trusted.”
“I know that,” Phoebe replied, her gaze focused on the club. She eventually tore her eyes away, glanced at her friend. Olivia was everything that Phoebe wasn’t — wild and unrestrained, her pink hair cut short and the tattoo of a thorny branch curled around her neck. It was Olivia who had first introduced her to the endlessly fascinating world of magic.
And Phoebe couldn’t get enough of it.
They stepped out of the car and headed toward Annwn, the eerie, magical sensation becoming almost tangible. Unlike the rest of the exterior, the club doors were beautifully intricate, carved with runes and inlaid with silver and copper and bronze. Phoebe shivered as they entered, giddy and nervous at the same time. The air inside was cool and smelled strongly of incense and wax, the sort of aromas that she associated with rituals.
Instinctively Phoebe followed her friend, her eyes struggling to adjust to the low light. It was crowded here, bodies jammed up against one another. Olivia flitted around the packed rooms, laughing and chatting, incredibly relaxed. Phoebe tried to imitate her friend, her own unease melting away.
Everything was going well until she lost track of Olivia.
***
“Excuse me,” Phoebe apologized as she squeezed through the crowd. She was trying not to gawk at the other club patrons, although that was proving to be difficult. All around her were spectacles of magic: a woman summoned snakes from midair, their bodies slowly winding over her limbs, and near the restrooms, two men were outlined in flickering, multicolored flames. The spells here were certainly better than anything that she and Olivia could do. Once, Olivia had claimed to speak to the ghost of a motorcyclist outside of a seedy 7-Eleven, but that had been the extent of her abilities. Phoebe and Olivia were fascinated by magic, drawn to it, but they lacked any sort of talent. The best that they could do was to hang back in the shadows and watch the wonders from afar.
Which was why they were here, surrounded by witches and sorcerers and wizards. The air tingled and crackled with the electricity of raw magic, raising goosebumps on Phoebe’s arms as she scanned the dark room for Olivia. Her friend was nowhere to be seen; it was as if she had been absorbed into the dense crowd. At last Phoebe gave up and wandered toward the bar.
As with everything else inside of Annwn, the bar had an otherworldly aspect to it. It seemed to be chipped from volcanic glass, veins of gold running through the glossy black material. She reached out and ran her fingers along the bar top, surprised at how warm it felt, like something alive. And knowing this place, maybe it was. Taking a seat near the end of the bar, she asked for a cosmo and stealthily watched as several people danced and swayed, their features warping into something inhuman as the shadows passed over their faces.
A broad-shouldered man wound his way past the dancers, moving with a fluid, almost animal grace. The alcohol was beginning to take effect, Phoebe’s head swimming, and that may have been why she was unable to glance away. Almost everyone here had been touched by magic, and yet there was something about this man that particularly mesmerized her. As if sensing her fascination, he paused and looked in her direction, eyes glittering within their deep sockets. They locked glances for several heartbeats, and then he turned away, his leather jacket catching the dim light.
Phoebe sat at the bar, waiting for Olivia, and one drink became two. And then three. She had finished most of her third cosmo when someone slid down into the seat next to her. She didn’t look at the stranger until he unexpectedly addressed her.
“I haven’t seen you here before,” he said, and Phoebe swiveled in her seat. With his small stature, pale hair and large, dark eyes, the stranger reminded her of a lab mouse. A dapperly dressed lab mouse, complete with a seersucker suit and bow tie.
She put down her drink. “It’s my first time.”
“Impressive, isn’t it?” The man took a swig of beer. “Especially if you’re not a magic user.”
“I’m a mage,” Phoebe lied, and she wasn’t sure if he believed her. Tucking an auburn lock of hair behind one ear, she smiled and made a dismissive gesture, the alcohol making her bold. “This is all child’s play.”
“Oh?” An amused grin quirked the man’s mouth.
“You should see all the spells that I can do,” Phoebe told him, the lie growing.
“I’d love to see that,” he said, reaching past her. His hand brushed her glass and she thought that his lips moved ever so slightly. But her vision was unreliable, her senses molasses-slow. Wobbling, Phoebe tried to steady herself on the seat as the stranger continued, “Anyway, it’s not safe for normal people around here. Magic tends to be capricious, as does its practitioners.”
Be careful, Olivia had warned her. Not everyone can be trusted.
The man studied Phoebe, dark eyes unnerving. Despite the alcoholic fog clouding her mind, she recognized the danger of her situation. Phoebe managed not to fall over as she stood up, mumbling an excuse as she grabbed her drink and quickly finished it. She was grateful that she had worn blue flats instead of high heels as she teetered away.
Or tried to teeter away.
Her feet slid out of the shoes. Gasping, Phoebe caught herself before she tumbled to the floor. The world spun, faster and faster, and it wasn’t due to the cosmos. Adrenaline cut through her stupor, sharpening her sight. To her horror, she saw her dress expanding around her body, the lacy fabric lengthening at an incredible rate. No, it wasn’t expanding; she was dwindling away. The dress grew heavier and heavier, trapping her beneath its bulk. Desperately she raked and clawed at the fabric, trying to free herself as the minimal light vanished.
Phoebe called for help, her voice muffled. Not that anyone could hear her over the roar of music, which was now so loud that it vibrated her bones.
She crawled through the labyrinth of fabric, somehow managing to slip through one of the sleeves.
Hours earlier, Phoebe would have thought that she was prepared for anything. She and Olivia had watched countless YouTube videos showing feats of magic, had even traveled to a remote Irish village renowned for its proximity to the Fae courts. Phoebe had seen transmutation, telekinesis, communication with demons and forgotten gods.
She wasn’t ready to see how much everything had changed.
The bar was a gleaming black and gold mountain, rising so far up that she couldn’t see the top. Beneath her bare feet, the floor trembled with the footfalls of the club patrons. Those patrons moved in the gloom like leviathans, their legs stretching up toward the ceiling. Too large for her to completely comprehend, too large for her to register as human anymore. How small was she? Her brain flailed at the impossibility of her situation, spinning uselessly in place. Phoebe stood slowly, too terrified to care that she was nude. She looked to her right, where a wadded napkin the size of a Volkswagen Beetle sat; to her left, the bar seat towered, each scratch and dent and chip in the wood magnified.
Then she saw the hand coming for her.
Phoebe spotted it in her peripheral vision, a huge thing with telephone-pole fingers. It belonged to the lab mouse man, and even though she tried to spring away, she couldn’t move fast enough. Before Phoebe could suck in another breath, she found herself lifted from the floor, her body trapped between calloused finger pads. Squirming, she tried to wiggle free, but the man only cast her a cursory glance. He had conjured up a jar in his other hand, and with the nonchalance of a fisherman collecting bait, he dumped her into the glass prison.
She plummeted down into the jar, the air knocked from her lungs when she hit the bottom.
It had to be a nightmare. Phoebe was so desperate that for a moment, she almost believed that she was at home, curled up in her bed, dreaming of a reality where she was no bigger than a thumb. But the pain that barreled through her body was too sharp, too persistent to be her imagination.
The jar swung around abruptly, sending her slamming against the glass. Phoebe found herself staring into a pair of massive, frightening eyes. Her initial impression had been wrong; he wasn’t a mouse. More like a wolf or a hyena, something predatory and extremely dangerous.
“I told you that it’s not safe here,” the man boomed, his voice blasting her ears. He chuckled and tilted the jar, inspecting her. “Especially if you’re just a normal person. But you couldn’t help yourself, could you? I’ve seen so many like you. Fascinated by magic and ultimately destroyed by it.”
Phoebe wanted to run, to shriek, but she all that she could was press up against the cold glass.
“I’m sure that some warlock will be interested in purchasing you for a potion or a spell,” the man continued. “You’re going to make me a lot of money.”
Her drink. He had to have done something to her drink. And it hadn’t been just a prank, either. Her captor intended to sell her for use in dark magic, the kind that Phoebe only heard about in whispers. The bitter tang of terror filled her mouth. As the man placed the jar into his bag, she frantically searched for Olivia or anyone else who could help her.
No one noticed her.
The meager light disappeared as the man zipped the bag. Phoebe could only listen as she was carried away, the music and the chatter becoming softer. He had left Annwn, that much was clear. Where was he bringing her? To some sort of magic dealer in a shady shop? She imagined the jar nestled between enchanted candles and bottles of dried moth wings. Clearance Sale: one tiny, foolish woman.
Gritting her teeth, she hammered at the glass.
The man’s voice rumbled through Phoebe, and for a minute, she thought that he was addressing her. Then she detected another voice, this one lower and more gravelly. Her captor was talking to someone. Hope and pessimism warred with one another in Phoebe’s chest as she leaned against the glass wall, listening. This could be a potential rescuer; it could also be a potential buyer. She caught fragments of the conversation, her captor wheedling and cajoling, the other man quiet and seemingly indifferent.
Silence, then her captor let out a high, nervous bray of laughter. Phoebe wondered what was going on, although she didn’t have much time to wonder. The impact came so suddenly and so forcefully that she wasn’t able to prepare for it at all. The bag, the jar and Phoebe sailed through the air, and when they crashed against the ground, she may have blacked out. For how long, she had no idea. The sensations all returned at once: the cool hardness of the glass underneath her, the pain where she had hit her elbow, the vibrating impacts of footsteps.
Those footsteps were getting closer.
“Hey! Hey, I need help!” Phoebe shouted, praying that she would be rescued. She started to repeat her plea, then froze. Metallic thunder rumbled overhead as the bag was unzipped. To her relief, the distant light of a street lamp revealed the face of a stranger, not her captor. She didn’t have much time to study him; already he was rifling through the bag, his gargantuan hands shoving aside the Lab Mouse’s other items. A pen as big as a sapling and an enormous metal container became unexpected hazards, colliding violently with the jar. If she had been outside of the jar, she would have been squashed into pulp.
Then the man seized the jar and lifted it up so swiftly that Phoebe’s stomach lurched. It was like being on a broken carnival ride, the g-forces bearing down relentlessly. On her long journey upwards, she spotted the body sprawled out in the alleyway. It was dressed in a seersucker suit, the white fabric slowly and steadily consumed by crimson. Pale hair fanned out around the head, the eyes wide and unseeing.
So her captor was dead. She was too stunned to feel much, though.
The jar rose up and up, past a massive field of leather. The rolling hills and valleys became familiar: an abdomen and chest, astonishingly gigantic. Phoebe recognized the leather jacket and its owner from earlier. It was the broad-shouldered man from the dance floor, and whatever his intentions were, she was fairly certain that they weren’t benevolent. He brought the jar up to his lower face, his lips curving and then splitting into a grin.
Never before had a mouth seemed so horrifying. All that Phoebe could see were colossal, razor-sharp fangs shining darkly with blood. The giant contemplated her, his tongue sliding over one of the mammoth fangs. This wasn’t some magical glamor; he wasn’t human. He was a vampire. A monster.
The giant’s breath washed over the jar, fogging the glass and briefly obscuring those terrible fangs. When he spoke, his tone and words were ominous:
“Oh, you look absolutely delicious.”
Giantess World
