Free Play Dead by John Levitt

there as if by magic. Which of course was precisely what it was. “One got through.”
    Still another problem. The lights were too minuscule to be blocked completely. The shield was like those Kevlar vests police wear—they’ll stop a large-caliber bullet with no problem, but narrow the point of focus and now it’s trouble. A stiletto, wielded with sufficient force, will punch right through it because the point of the knife is small enough to squeeze through the fibers. And these little fiery points of light were small enough to squeeze through the shield.
    And each time one broke through, it weakened the shield and made it just a bit easier for the next one. We didn’t have an hour to figure things out; we had minutes.
    A disturbance toward the back of the room caught my eye. The random pattern of swirling flecks coalesced into something less random there. All the points of light that entered that specific area suddenly glowed brighter and swooped off in the same direction for a short distance before dissolving into chaos again.
    What was causing this? Of course. The fan, sitting on its table, blowing air. When the air moved, so did the flecks, and the extra breeze energized them like a bellows stoking up a fire, making them light up like fireflies on steroids.
    I could use this. My strength lies in improvisation, taking cues from the environment around me, weaving in various aspects and using my talent to effect spells. But that sort of thing isn’t instantaneous. It always takes a little time, and we’d have to drop the energy shield for me to put things in motion. And the second the energy shield came down, we’d be riddled with white hot holes.
    “Sherwood,” I said. “If we drop the shield, how long could you protect us?”
    “Completely?”
    “No, just enough so that I can do something about these things without getting fried.”
    She looked out at the swirling points of light. The room now looked like a miniature snowstorm.
    “Maybe a minute if I can keep total concentration. Maybe less if I blink.”
    “Plenty of time. If it works.”
    “And if it doesn’t?”
    “People will remember us fondly, I’m sure.”
    “Hmm. Me, perhaps. And Lou, of course.” She looked out into the room again. “You hold the shield in place for a minute. I’m going to need all of my energy for this.”
    I could feel talent moving as she gathered energy, even taking some from the shield itself, forcing me to pour even more of my own into it to keep it up and running. She flexed her arms, and energy was coursing down them into her hands. She took a deep breath and nodded.
    “Ready,” she said.
    I dropped the shield, redirected my energy out into the room, and the flecks of white-hot light swarmed in. I was focusing on the task at hand, but from the corner of my eye I saw Sherwood whip out both hands and let loose concentrated pulses of energy. Every time a group of spots intersected with Sherwood’s energy pulse, they flared brightly and winked out of existence. It was like a 3-D video game or a miniature fireworks display, inches from my head.
    I heard Sherwood curse and Lou yelp, and a moment later I felt burning on the back of my neck. She wasn’t intercepting them all. I ignored the pain and reached out with my talent. I gathered the essence of the electric fan in the corner and enhanced it, both the movement of air and its circular motion. Then I sucked energy out of one side of the room and poured it into the other, creating an imbalance. When I cast out the essence I’d gathered, it created a perfect little whirlwind. The floating points were swept up in the airflow, burning even brighter as the miniature tornado whirled them around.
    I brought the whirlwind close to us, where it sucked up the random bits that Sherwood had been fending off. Then I pushed it toward the door, compressed it down, and focused it on a spot just above the doorknob. The heat from the now-concentrated light flecks was palpable even