Deadly Designs (Design Series) (8 page)

"I don't know how to do that," he said. "Paxton or your stylus might though. The first thing we have to do is find a way to talk to the child. If she doesn't want to come willingly, it's not going to be fun for any of us."

He had a point. Storey turned back to the room with the cupboard-door-looking hallway.

"There's a weird hallway in this room. I think she's at the far end."

"Show me."

Storey led the way back into the passageway. At the other end, it appeared as if the light was still on. There was no sign of the child in the first room. She motioned at the lit room ahead, then they walked quietly over to see if the child was in the second area.

The room appeared to be more of a bedroom than anything else Storey had seen in the place, but it didn't make much sense in layout. There were shapes similar to beds, but wider and shorter and they were stacked liked bunks. There was no bedding. Storey guessed everything necessary had been stripped. Since the Louers hadn't had much time for crossing over, it made sense that some belongings had been left behind for another trip. Although from what she could see, they'd done a decent job the first time around.

As she walked into the center of the room, she turned slowly, searching for the child. And found her backpack.

Yes.
The bag sat on the floor, open and dumped. Even from where she stood, Storey could see the granola had been flattened. "I need to get my stuff," she whispered, nudging Eric's arm, she pointed to her bag. With a cautious look around, she raced forward and quickly grabbed up the remaining contents. Her sketchbook was missing. Figured.

Still no sign of the child. Or another door, either. Weird. Then again, what did she know about the doors here? They seemed to just appear. "Eric, I don't know where she is."

"Hiding most likely. It's what I'd do. Is everything here made of rock?" He walked over to the closest bed like structure and pushed down. "Looks like it."

"I wondered too. It looks like they've taken absolutely everything they could with them. Well, not quite. There are cupboards in the other room with some weird stuff left behind." Storey paused and spun around to face him, delight spreading across her face, as she remembered what else she'd found. "Guess what? I found more styluses. Six in all, including a broken one."

Eric spun so fast he almost knocked her over. "What? You found styluses? Like
our
styluses? Here? How?"

She pulled out two from her pocket. His look of astonishment grew. Flashing a big grin at him, she then tucked the items safely back away.

"Come. I'll show you." Storey led the way back through the tunnel. Inside the dark room again, she pointed to the shelves on the side. "They were tossed in there. I presume the child found mine in my backpack, recognized it and threw it in there with the others."

"Lights on." Instantly light filled the space.

Eric stared from her to the cupboard and back again. "Chances are that if they've been here all this time, they won't work now."

"Maybe." Storey bent to look, yet again, into the back of the cupboard. And found herself staring into a pair of eyes.

She screamed and jumped back, her hand to her throat. "Good God. What is that thing? A rat?"

Eric leaned over to take a look. And grinned. "I think it's a skorl. We have them at home, but they've almost become extinct."

Storey took another look. The animal's small, beady eyes were set wide apart with a small nose. The rest of the rodent-sized critter appeared to be covered in a large amount of dust covered fur. It held out a paw, the fur stopping before switching to brown skin covered digits.

"That's the girl's pet, then," Storey said. "According to my stylus, when everyone was moving to the new dimension, her pet was scared off and she ran after him and got left behind. Now with the portal the way it is…"

Eric looked from her to the animal. "Don't tell me. We're going to have to save the pet, too?"

She grinned. "I knew you'd understand."

The small rodent with the big eyes sat on its haunches to stare at them curiously.

"I wonder if it bites?" he muttered.

"Probably," she said cheerfully. "It doesn't know you. If we could find the girl, she could retrieve it. Too bad they don't have a cage to carry it. I've never seen such a pile of junk." She pointed to the remaining contents of the cupboard.

Eric studied the almost empty shelves. "Think about it. They left behind…"

"…everything what wasn't needed or useable." Storey finished.

"Exactly. They might have more things stored in another location to collect later. If the portal is damaged, maybe they haven't had a chance yet?" He cast another quick look around. "At least we know this group made it over to the new dimension."

"How do we get the pet out safely?" She bent again to take a cautious glance at the animal still sitting at the back of the cupboard. "It's liable to make a run for it if we try to capture it."

Eric sighed. "I really don't want to stick my hand in there and grab it. That thing is likely to take my fingers off."

"True." Storey grinned at the disgusted look on his face. "Do you think we should take the two of them back to your dimension first? Then figure out how to get her home to her family?"

He looked up at her from his squatting position. "Paxton would be horrified. Besides, you're making a big assumption here. We might not be taking her anywhere."

Storey refused to be put off. They'd faced much bigger obstacles and overcome them; this was no different. "Any better suggestions? We have to create a game plan. And to see if these styluses are okay. They're in hibernation, according to my stylus."

"You could contact Paxton and ask for advice. I'd hate to bring these two back unannounced."

"Except that I can't communicate very well with it." The backpack had been emptied. "No sketchbook, no paper. I can ask questions and he tries to answer, but sorting out what I'm writing on a wall in the dark isn't easy. And he's not back to full strength, although I'm not sure just what that means."

Eric stood up suddenly and reached into his back pocket. He pulled out two folded pieces of paper. "I found these in your bedroom. Use them."

She opened the paper up to find the several of the first portals she'd created. It seemed so long ago, but it had been…what…only a few weeks? Her fist pumped into the air. "Yes! We could be home in minutes." Homesickness hit, draining the excitement from her system. "You went to my place? To try and find me?"

"Yes."

"How…" Unexpected tears threatened to clog her vision. She cleared her throat. "How was my mother?"

"I am not exactly sure." He stared at her thoughtfully. "They know you're missing, because they came into your room while I hid in the closet."

"They," she said, her heart sinking. "My father was there?'

"Yes."

"So, the stylus was right again," she muttered, pulling the stylus out of her pocket. "Stylus, are you back to full working power yet?"

She didn't need paper to see her hand outline
No
in the air. "Damn."

"What's that all about?"

"We were separated too long, so it went into sleep mode, power saver mode or something. Now that it's with me it's recharging – if that's the proper word for what it's doing – but it's not all there yet. I can ask questions, but I don't think he can reach Paxton yet. Every time I ask about how long, he just says soon."

Just then noises from inside the cupboard, followed by scurrying feet, had her jumping back and out of the way as the skorl raced out. Eric was faster. He scooped it up and tucked into the front of his coat.

The little creature struggled and squealed worse than a pig only in a much higher-pitched voice. The sound rose in volume like a damned siren. Storey clapped her hands over her ears. "Make it stop."

With a grimace, he said, "I don't know how." He looked around. "Find something to carry it in, will you?"

Storey raced to the cupboard. Surely there'd be a container of some kind.

The sound of running feet was her only warning, then Eric yelled, "Hey, stop that!"

Storey spun around to find the Louer child, at least she figured that's what it was, screaming at Eric and pounding on his chest.

And what a noise came out of her mouth. Storey had never heard anything like it. And didn't want to again.
Jesus
. The squealing skorl had nothing on her. "Eric. Give it to her. She thinks you're hurting it."

"What?"

Storey shook her head and raced over. Eric was getting pounded on from both sides. And getting madder by the minute. She couldn't blame him. Storey wrapped her arms securely around the child, who came up to her ribs, but was probably close to Storey in weight, and pulled her back off Eric. Then she clapped a hand over the child's mouth to try to stop the weird noise coming out of her mouth.

It helped, but only a little bit. "Eric, show her the pet. She needs to see that it is okay."

Eric rolled his eyes and reached inside his jacket for the squealing animal. As soon as the skorl saw the child and the child saw her pet, they both shut up. The child put out her arms and Eric placed the animal in them. The girl's arms squeezed the small animal tight.

Silence.

Except for a sniffling sound out of the little girl. Eric closed his eyes for a moment. "Blessed silence."

Storey couldn't agree more.

"Can you talk to her?"

He glared at her in horror. "I don't speak Louer. No one does."

"Wrong. My stylus does."

The child rained kisses on the matted varmint. And didn't the damn thing stay like it needed the affection as much as the child did? Storey shook her head and on a corner of the first of the two papers Eric had brought, she asked her stylus if he could write Louer.

"Yes."

"Can you write a note to this child that we mean her no harm and we'd like to help her, please?"

Her hand instantly started to move, writing out weird and wonderful characters in a close, tightly woven script similar to those on the side of the stylus itself. The writing had a delicate grace to the flowing characters. When she finally stopped writing, she'd filled the top quarter of the paper. And fast. The message was illegible. "Stylus, are you sure she can't read English?"

She's too young to read written English. Her native language speaks to her differently.

"Differently how?"

But she stood up to hold the paper in front of the child. Hoping she could understand it.

The child's eyes widened as she looked at the writing, some of the fear dropped off her face and relief filled her gaze. Her gaze went from Eric, to the paper and then Storey. Tears filled her eyes and she threw herself into Storey's arms, crumpling rodent and paper together.

Storey had to wrap her arms around her. But staring at Eric over top of the girl's head, she asked, "Do you have any idea what the stylus wrote?"

"Heck no."

T
hey'd agreed to bring the child to Eric's home. There they could enlist Paxton's help in finding the right way to return her to her family. At the moment, they hadn't been able to do even that.

Eric couldn't get his codexes to work.

The child – they so needed to find out what her name was – had curled up in a tight ball at Storey's feet. Sleeping as if she hadn't slept in months or at least since she'd been left alone. The skorl, although not asleep if the malevolent look in its beady eyes was anything to go by, had tucked itself into the curve of the girl's waist.

Storey studied the chunky looking girl. She could see the similarities to the Louers they'd banished earlier from the Toran dimension. They were a taller, stocky race, but she hadn't had an idea of what the females looked like. She still had the broad forehead, thick nose and flat high cheekbones. Yet there was a more delicate, feminine cast to her features.

Regardless of her misgivings, the child had to be returned to her parents. That's all there was to it.

And who knew better than Storey how that process would go? "Are the codexes really broken or are you looking for a way to avoid taking us back?" Not that she'd blame him if he was. She might pull that very trick if their positions were reversed.

He snapped, "The codex problem has nothing to do with her. They worked originally, then there was a set of weird musical commands that I didn't, and still don't, understand. The last thing was a message in Toranee code that I finally understood to be your name. But before I could understand what or why, you were there, standing in front of me."

"The stylus. It probably contacted your codex to let you know my location."

Eric frowned. "Is that possible? Did he ever contact my codex before?"

It was Storey's turn to frown down at the codex. "I know it's tracked your codex, because that's how I found it when you lost it in the basement that time. But I don't know if the stylus ever tried to contact it directly. Then again, who knows."

Eric bent his head to the codex again. Once more he typed in Paxton's lab and once again, nothing happened.

"I wonder if the stylus did something so you couldn't go back without me. So I wouldn't be left here."

He glowered at her. "Then you'd better ask it."

With a soft groan, she pulled the stylus out of her pocket and grabbed the one piece of paper she had at her disposal. "Stylus, are you getting stronger?"

Yes.

She smiled triumphantly at Eric. "See. It even feels stronger in my hand."

"Yes, but is it ready to go? We need to get moving." He pointed out the sleeping pair at their feet. "We're going to have enough trouble when she wakes up. And communicating is going to be one of the biggest problems. Not to mention she'll expect us to help her and we don't even know what the stylus wrote in the message to her."

"Then let's start there with the questions." She twisted the paper so that she had a clean corner to write on. "Stylus, what did you tell the Louer girl?"

Her hand wrote quickly.
That she is safe now and that you were going to take her to her parents. And that she should trust you as you'd see her safely home.