Free Deadly Designs (Design Series) by Dale Mayer Page A

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."

CHAPTER 7
    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