Excerpt: Kairos

“What?! How in the world am I meant to do that?” Oliver couldn’t even begin to imagine how he was supposed to start ordering the air around.

“Oh, you know…just sort of think about it, and it’ll do what you tell it to.” The vague instructions were not at all reassuring.

“I thought you knew how this was going to work,” Oliver hissed.

“For goodness’ sake, you giant baby – just do it!”

The command must’ve been imbibed with some magical threat of its own, for Oliver found himself obeying right away. Though in the back of his mind he felt more than a little silly, he imagined all of the air in the room sliding over to his feet, and lifting him straight off the ground.

It worked. Much to Oliver’s surprise, but mostly because before he could say lickety split he found himself rather forcefully mashed against the room’s ceiling – and quite unable to breathe. He wasn’t that smooshed, he thought wildly as his mouth worked like a fish’s out of water, so – what the hell was happening?

“Oh, you idiot – I told you to keep control.” The Ledger Demon’s tone was infuriatingly calm, and if that was indeed amusement, as Oliver suspected it was, he would fetch a priest and have him exorcised as soon as he got down.

Can’t breathe, Oliver forced himself to think coherently, knowing it could read his thoughts. Help!

“Well, I can’t help you – you’re the one doing it!”

Doing what?! Please!

“You’ve taken all the air, you fool – you haven’t left any for yourself to breathe.”

Oliver’s lungs felt like they were going to burst. Using the last bits of mental faculty he had left, he managed to compose himself (in his ridiculous position) long enough to concentrate and will the air to dissipate back to where it had come from.

The immediate result of this was that he fell to the floor with a rather resounding crash.

“Oh, bugger all this for a lark!” Oliver hissed, rubbing his very sore behind and utilizing the strongest swear in his vocabulary. “Are you just having a laugh at me, or what?”