Darkest Designs Read online

  Darkest Designs

  Book #3 of the Design Series

  Drawing is her world...but when she's pushed into the In-Between and thought lost forever, it's his world too.

  Her... Storey Dalton wants her life back. Her home back. Her world back. The way they were before she messed with time. She does not want to become a living dead lost In-between. She thought she'd known the worst that could happen...but she wasn't even close.

  Him... Eric thought he'd seen the worst that his father could do...but he hadn't...unfortunately. Heartbroken and panicked, Eric tracks Storey to the misty dead space – and follows her in. There is a way out – but not a way that anyone would willingly choose.

  It... The stylus has no way to help with Storey's latest predicament. But survival is paramount. Only this time it can't do it alone. There might be help available...if they can save someone else...first.

  Them... Storey wants to save her world. Eric wants to save Storey. The stylus wants them to save someone else. But can anyone save them all?

  Dale Mayer

  Valley Publishing

  Copyright © 2013

  ISBN-13: 978-1-927461-76-1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidences either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Other Books

  About the author

  PROLOGUE

  In Deadly Designs we let off with this chapter…

  Someone moaned.

  Storey wished they’d stop. Her headache boomed deep inside. “Easy, Storey.” Eric’s voice split right through her skull. She shuddered.

  “It’s over now, but we almost didn’t make it. We’re still feeling the effects of their telepathic weapon.”

  Storey sat up in a panic, grabbing her head as it threatened to explode. “Did the portal come with us?”

  The large sheet of paper landed in the dirt in front of her. Groaning, she dropped back to the ground and picked up the paper. “Thank heavens. I don’t think I’d be able to run anywhere right now.”

  “Too bad,” snapped an angry voice behind them. “You took so long to get here, we don’t have a choice. We have to leave now.”

  Storey closed her eyes. Damn. The Councilman still lived.

  “Hello, father.” Eric struggled to his feet.

  Storey didn’t bother. Besides, she wasn’t sure she could. The pounding inside her skull had eased slightly, but not enough to make movement a good idea yet.

  “Storey? You can recuperate back home.”

  Home? Her eyelids popped open. “That much effort might be possible.”

  “Better yet,” the Councilman snapped, “we leave you here. You’re responsible for this mess. Let’s go, Eric.”

  “No.” Eric’s harsh voice left no doubt about his seriousness. “She comes with us or I leave you here.”

  Storey’s gaze landed on the Councilman’s face long enough to see the hate glazing his eyes. He obviously hadn’t come to terms with her presence in his world. At least back at Paxton’s lab, she knew they’d take care of him. With false energy, she struggled to her feet, but was forced to stay bent over for a long moment to adjust to being vertical.

  “Can you see any of the other codexes? Portals?” She studied around the dark space. It appeared empty. But in the darkness, who could tell for sure? And they didn’t have time for a full search right now.

  “Father, did they leave anything here with you?”

  “No, they didn’t understand and ruined the portals with water. They are wearing the codexes. That’s how they went home.” He snorted as he scrambled to his feet. “They didn’t need much guidance on their usage.”

  Storey exchanged an appalled look with Eric. How much did the Louers know of Toran technology after their session with Eric’s father? “If Paxton can shut them down that might be the easiest way to deal with any that can’t be retrieved.”

  “And if he can’t?” Eric glared at his father. “Did you really help them use the codexes…against your own people?” His jaw worked furiously. “Have you so little regard for your home? That you would bring something like this on them?”

  The Councilman turned his back on Storey to glower at Eric. He sniffed hard and lifted his nose into the air. “It was the only way to secure my safety.”

  “Jesus,” Storey muttered under her breath. “Eric, are you prepared to trust his word about the portals and codexes?”

  Running a hand through his short cropped hair, Eric frowned. He walked the small space where his father had been held. There were small pieces of paper on the ground at the doorway to the next cavern, soaked and damaged beyond use. “He’s correct about these.” Eric pointed to the fragments. “Let’s hope Paxton can disable the remaining codexes.”

  Storey walked over, the portal in her hand. “I’ll ask the stylus to disable any still functioning portals as well. Soon as we get somewhere safe.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Enough already,” snapped the Councilman. “The guards will be here any minute. Let’s go.”

  Even as the words left his mouth they heard heavy sounds of someone running. Then another set of running footsteps.

  “Shit.” Storey stepped back to give Eric room. “Hurry.”

  Eric bent over in agony, his hands clasped to his ears.

  “My head. The pain. I can’t think.”

  That same horrible noise built up inside Storey’s head. Damn the Louers’ and their secret weapon. “We have to go. Punch the codes.” Storey gasped as the pain increased.

  “Hurry up,” snapped the Councilman. The noise twisted his features, but didn’t seem to be crippling him the same as Eric and her. “Why can’t we travel by portal?”

  Time. That’s why they couldn’t go by portal. “It has to be codex. Time is a problem with portals.” Storey yelled to be heard over the pounding in her head.

  Eric’s gaze widened as he understood her. “Right. I forgot.” He took a deep breath, pulled back his sleeve and tapped a sequence of numbers.

  The Councilman stepped closer, his nervous gaze searching the darkness around them. Hissing, he said, “Hurry.”

  “It takes a moment.” Eric’s face twisted against the unbearable noise. He bent over gasping for breath. Mist swirled up from the ground. Store
y struggled to remain conscious as pain turned her world black. She didn’t know how Eric was faring or why the Councilman seemed unaffected. Unless his sheer size had something to do with it.

  Gratefully, she realized that the higher the black mist, the less the noise penetrated. It didn’t take long before she could stand up straight. Over Eric’s shoulder she watched several Louer guards race into the chamber. “Uh, Eric? How far does the mist have to climb before it’s too late to reverse?”

  She nodded behind him. He turned his head, his shoulders relaxed. “It’s too late now.”

  The Councilman glared at her. “Don’t be telling her any of our secrets.”

  “It’s hardly a secret, Father. Besides, it’s nothing to what you’ve told them.”

  Keeping a wary eye on the two Louers, Storey held her breath until the mist blocked her view. They were safe.

  The black mist was damn freaky. She didn’t understand how the system worked. If she was in the middle of the haze, would it only transport part of her? If the Louers had tried to jump in, would only part of them make it? That thought shook her.

  Still, they’d gotten away clean. Eric was here with her, Tammy was home and they were even bringing the Councilman back. There might be some skirmishing going on in Eric’s dimension, but his people were perfectly capable of taking care of that problem now. Maybe she could finally go home. In truth, she wanted a hug from her mother. She couldn’t believe how much she’d missed her.

  The mist closed over her head.

  “Thank heavens for that,” she whispered.

  “We’re almost home now.”

  She closed her eyes and waited for the endless darkness to lighten. And waited. “Eric?”

  “Another moment. The codex has stopped signaling.”

  His comforting tone of voice reassured her almost as much as his words. She breathed a sigh of relief. “Good, I was afraid something else had gone wrong.”

  “No. Everything’s fine. Almost there.”

  The stiffness eased from her shoulders and her insides relaxed.

  Just then two hands reached out and gave her a shove – hard. She lost her balance.

  A shocked shriek escaped her.

  ***

  Eric reached out to grab her and yelled, “Storey? What’s the matter?”

  There was only silence.

  And empty space.

  Storey couldn’t breathe. She bent over and gasped, desperately trying to force her chest open to let air in. The pressure was killing her. She didn’t dare pass out in case she didn't wake up. She gulped air like a grounded fish, trying to take in as much oxygen as she could. With each breath her lungs expanded easier, faster. Finally, some of the tension slipped off her shoulders and her muscles eased slightly. She stretched her neck and willed the rest of the strain away.

  Wherever she was, she lay surrounded in a dense gray fog. Not shadowy, like the Louers’ world, but a completely empty type of gloominess. In spite of her attempts to stop it, shudders slid down her spine in a continuous tremor. What had happened?

  Then she remembered. Of course. They’d almost made it home – her, Eric and the Councilman. Then she’d been pushed out of the portal.

  Damn.

  “Eric?” She called out tentatively. No answer. She called out louder. “Eric.” Still nothing. She yelled his name next, and when only a deafening silence answered, she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Eric! Are you there?”

  Silence. And not a normal silence. A total absence of…anything. Beyond weird.

  What had she expected? Why was it she hadn’t seen this coming? Not that she’d expected decent behavior from the man that had tried several times to have her killed, but to actually do the dirty work himself? That surprised her.

  Stylus. She slapped her hands over the stylus, her pencil-like computer thingy. “Stylus, can you hear me?”

  Yes.

  “Oh thank you, God,” she murmured. She closed her eyes. She wasn’t alone. She could do this. With the stylus, she could do anything. Taking a deep breath, she let it go gustily, feeling her sense of optimism settle in. This was going to be okay. Feeling better, she asked, “Where are we?”

  In-between.

  Uh oh. Cautiously, she asked, “In-between what?”

  Time and place.

  She winced. That so didn’t sound good. “What does that mean?”

  It means we have no location.

  No location? How could that be? She existed. Somewhere. Therefore there was a place. It was here. “Sooo…” she pressed. “How do we get out of this?”

  We don’t have that information.

  Okay, so maybe this wasn’t going to be so easy. She shook her head, more to clear the negativity than in denial. Although denial of the circumstances was there – by the bucket loads. “So not a good answer. We’ll have to find the information. The longer we stay stuck like this, the harder it’s going to be to get home.”

  So saying she took a deep breath and stood up. Her surroundings looked the same. She placed a hand out into the dense space in front of her, but there was nothing there. And that freaked her out more than she cared to admit. She crouched down and studied her feet. Her shoes were muddy and showing signs of damage after the past week. She’d have to find new ones soon. She winced. She was focusing on her shoes to avoid thinking of the fogginess around them, in front of them…under them. Yet she could see her feet – barely. She straightened. In the Louers’ mine she’d at least been able to tap the hard surface of the floor and recognize that she’d come to the end of whatever drop she’d taken.

  Here…she stretched out the tip of her right shoe and tried to tap the space in front of her left shoe. Her shoe went below her left foot. She gasped and pulled her foot back. She tried to stand on her right foot like she had been a minute earlier, only now there was nothing solid beneath it. Her foot slipped down until she caught herself and leaned all her weight onto her left shoe. Slowly she moved her foot around and tested the ground behind and in front of her. Only there was nothing there. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God!

  She straightened and rested her right foot on her left foot and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on her balance. Why wasn’t she one of those agile gymnast-cheerleader types who could stand on one leg for hours? She breathed in and out, in and out. Somewhat balanced, but knowing she couldn’t keep this up, she called out, “Stylus…a little help here.”

  When there was no response, she snapped, panicked, “Like now!”

  Researching our database. Our records show some people going In-between.

  She brightened. “That’s good right? So how did these people get out?”

  They only traveled to In-between as part of the journey to their end destination.

  “In other words they didn’t stop in…In-between. Which really means it doesn’t apply to us,” she said in exasperation. “Has anyone gotten stuck In-between that you know of?”

  Of course. You.

  She groaned and leaned her head back. Her left leg was starting to ache. She wasn’t going to be able to do this much longer. She spread her arms out to stabilize her footing. “Anyone else?”

  We are continuing to search the archives for more cases.

  Damn. “So best guess? Am I going to continue to fall if I put my weight on my right foot?”

  It’s possible.

  “Possible? Yeah. I know it’s possible. But is it likely?” She’d woken up here. Surely she hadn’t been sleeping standing up? What if she tried to sit? Did she dare? Did she have any choice?

  Her left leg trembled. Beads of sweat formed on her upper lip and the headache she’d had since she woke, minor pounding until now, started to kick her butt. She groaned with the effort to continue standing on one foot.

  You could fall. See where you stop.