The deer woman cracked open one eye and winced. That sunlight was inappropriately blinding for this level of headache.
Silvie rolled onto her side, feeling for a pillow to put over her head, but…what were those? Beads? This wasn’t a mattress, either.
Groaning, she pushed herself up on her elbows, looking around blearily. She still wore her night-on-the-town dress: a tight, forest green number, falling halfway between knee and thigh and showing enough cleavage to be illegal in more conservative parts of the world. Had she fallen asleep outside? Yes. Not anywhere attractive, either. Gravel parking lot?
She sat up, rubbing her eyes. God. How many cosmopolitans had she knocked back? Five? Six? It was the bar at the Hilton. Yes. A convention was in town, a dreary one, like pharmaceutical sales reps. Being hit on was fun, until it wasn’t, and she…what? Lost her temper?
No, no. She decided to make it fun on her own terms. She’d used a few annoying sales reps as drink garnishes. Shrunk them down—
No. Wait. She got big enough, seventh cosmo in hand, to add a handful to the glass, and started dancing outside to…music somewhere. Loud music. Maybe there’d been a concert at the stadium.
She looked down at the beads her hand had brushed over, trying to focus, and scooped them up. Hmm. A handful of a few dozen miniscule cars.
Dropping them, she forced herself to focus. This explained why she didn’t remember going home last night, but she’d merely been, what, two or three hundred feet tall, hadn’t she?
Wait. The police showed up. That’s right. Or maybe it was the National Guard or whatever. That was when she lost her temper.
Sighing, she looked around for her purse, shielding her eyes from the glare. Oh, how her head throbbed. Ah, there it was, on what she guessed had been the stadium. And the parking lot. All right, that meant that hoof print had been about half of downtown, that one had been the warehouse district, midtown—hmm, and uptown—was under her ass. Her legs stretched out across the river into a ritzy neighborhood—the one her condo was in. Had been in. Dammit.
Grabbing her purse, Silvie fished out her phone and called her personal assistant. “Karen. I’m going to need a condo in…oh, let’s say, Memphis, why don’t we, stat. Furnished. And find me a hotel room there I can stay in indefinitely, and a new wardrobe.”
“I gather it was one of those nights, ma’am. Do you need me to book a flight for you?”
She turned her head to look at the remains of the airport. “No, I think I’ll walk.”
“It’s four hundred miles.”
“Yes, it’ll take me a few hours at this size. I’ll grab food on the way.”
“Got it, ma’am. I’ll call you when I have a reservation.”
Putting the phone away, she staggered to a standing position, towering over the ruined landscape. Taking a deep breath, she slung her purse over her shoulder and began strolling along the river bank, hooves crunching over neighborhoods she’d never particularly liked. Her headache was still splitting, but at least it was a nice day for a walk.
© 2024 Arilin Thorferra