after all you just can’t start shooting because a few dozen people happen to be running in your general direction. meanwhile, coat an 8 x 8 glass baking dish with cooking spray. it reads more like a short novel than it does a long short story, and does a lot of what i do in my longer fiction—it has a great magic system and cool characters. i can promise you a person in danger won’t pray a long string of words or even a word of two syllables. 