Page 31 of Only Rogue Actions
Jeffrey cleared his throat again.“I’m not certain she’s still in the maze, sir.”
Roderick blinked and blinked, as though it had never occurred to him that someone could escape his hunting ground.
“I’ve switched the cameras to thermal imaging, but I’m not seeing her body heat anywhere in the maze,” Jeffrey replied.“I think she ...got out.”
Hope welled up in my chest.I reached out through the bond, just in case this was a cruel psychological trick, but the ribbon of Vesper had stretched out even further, and even more determination was rippling off her.I let out a soft, relieved laugh, and my inner monster purred with satisfaction.I’d been right.Vesperhadescaped from the maze.
Roderick glared at me like it was my fault Vesper had wriggled out of his trap.“How did she get out?”
“I ran a diagnostic scan,” Jeffrey replied.“Looks like she found an emergency control and used it to manually open an exit in the exterior wall.”
Roderick’s lips mashed together into a thin angry line, and a muscle tic-tic-ticced in his jaw like a timer counting down to an explosion.“Well,findher,” he growled.“Right now.Or I’ll be huntingyouin here next.Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Jeffrey replied in a low, strained voice.
The holoscreen let out another crackle of static, and the light winked out.
This time, I was the one who clucked my tongue in mock sympathy.“Your technician underestimating Vesper is going to be the death of you, Roddy.Vesper is much more dangerous with her seer magic than you are with all your toys, tricks, and traps.”
An angry flush swept up Roderick’s neck and flooded his cheeks, turning them the same bloodred as his armor.“My Hammers will find Vesper and put her right back in the maze.Why, I might even have time to have a little fun with Vesper before we ship her out.”
Ship her out?To where?And to whom?Was someone helping the Erzton lord with his house of horrors?If so, what did they want with Vesper?
Roderick shook his head, flinging off his anger like a dog shedding water from its coat.The flush faded from his cheeks, and when he focused on me again, he was calm.“I love that look on your face.”
“Whatlook?”I asked in a wary voice.
He grinned, his white teeth gleaming in his mouth.“When the prey finally realizes they’re caught in my trap and there is no escape.”
Roderick tightened his grip on his hammer and strode forward.I grabbed my psion power and watched him approach.As soon as Roderick passed the first pool of lava, I snapped up my right hand and lashed out with my telekinesis.
Usually, when I picked up an object with my psion power, I sensed the general weight and heft of it, if not always the tactile sensation or the actual temperature of the rock, branch, or whatever item I was tossing at an enemy.I had never tried to move lava before, and as soon as I touched it with my telekinesis, a burning sensation erupted in my hand, like I was trying to throw lumps of red-hot mud that kept slipping through my fingers.
Sweat poured down my face, but I snarled and tightened my grip on my telekinesis, and a ball of lava floated up out of the pool—
A hidden door opened in one of the walls, and a metal nozzle jutted out and swiveled toward me.
Pew!
A blaster bolt zinged through the air.I spun in that direction.My right hand was already busy holding the lava, so I flung my left hand out, trying to use my telekinesis to redirect the bolt just as I had done earlier to the jets of water in the Frozon biodome.
But I was too slow and too distracted by the lava, and the bright orange-red streak of electricity punched straight into my palm.I screamed and staggered back, clutching my left hand to my chest.I also lost my grip on my telekinesis, and the lumpy ball of lava splattered back down into the pool.
Hot, electric agony clawed past my wrist and chewed a path all the way up to my elbow.My entire arm was twitching from the pulsing pain, but I looked down and forced my trembling fingers to open.A deep, gruesome blaster burn covered my palm, as though it was a cut of meat that was red, rare, and bloody around the edges and charred to a blackened crisp in the center.
I gritted my teeth and threw up another psionic shield, walling off this fresh injury.I hissed out a breath as some of the intense, pulsing pain receded, but I couldn’t use my left hand, not even to pick up anything with my telekinesis.The slightest physical weight or psionic strain would crack my mental shield and flood my body with crippling pain.
“Poor Kyrion,” Roderick drawled.“Such a rookie mistake.You aren’t the first psion to try to use the Magma biodome against me.Did you really think I would let you throw lava at me?”
I swallowed another scream.Sweat streamed down my face, nausea roiled in my stomach, and it was all I could do not to vomit.Just looking at my scorched palm made the pain flare up even brighter and hotter and batter against my psionic shield, so I dropped my left hand to my side and tried to forget it was attached to the rest of my body.
Roderick laughed at my obvious distress.“Let me guess.Your hand feels like it is on fire, and your injury is hurting much worse than a typical blaster burn.Jeffrey came up with the ingenious idea to combine the lava with the blaster traps.I don’t really understand how it works, but it is quite effective and extremely painful.As you can feel for yourself.”
I was still too busy trying not to vomit to respond.
Roderick studied me a moment longer, then nodded, like he’d come to an important decision.“As much fun as this has been, Kyrion, I am on a bit of a schedule.I think we’ve played the game long enough.Besides, the grand finale is always my favorite part.”
He grinned again, then started swinging his hammer back and forth, slicing it through the air with ease as he approached me with all the confidence of a king marching toward a conquered land.
