The Open Channel

by Jill Morrow

  “Isobel said that she’d kept Julia’s spirit separate within her,” Gregory continued. He leaned forward and passed a tentative finger beneath Julia’s mouth and nose. “She breathes, Katerina. Her body lives. She has a body to house her spirit. Perhaps she can return to us.”

  Kat’s head jerked up. “How?”

  “I don’t know. We must ask.”

  Kat gripped the priest’s sleeve. “Pray. Pray for my daughter.”

  “Of course,” Alys said. “But you are the girl’s greatest protection.”

  “I am?”

  The prioress nodded. “You are her mother. So much more than flesh and blood binds you. Does not your century recognize the strength in such bonds?”

  Kat closed her eyes. She longed to process all this new information now, to roll it over and over through her brain to see if it made sense. As if any of this made sense! When would she learn that the rational part of her brain, so prized in her career and day-to-day routine, was not particularly helpful in this realm?

  “I’ll ask for help,” she said. “I’ll beg for it.”

  Isobel’s scream sliced through the air. Hugh lay atop her. He’d forced her legs open with his knee, but her screams came more from his appearance than his actions. The gaping burn on his cheek had grown, spreading to cover half his face. More patches had erupted across his body. The stench of burning flesh filled the air as tiny flames sparked from each patch. Hugh burned, but Isobel remained unscathed by the flame.

  “I can’t watch this any longer,” Alys whispered.

  “You shouldn’t,” Gregory told her. “None of us should. Turn away, Alys.”

  He finally left Kat and hurried to Alys’s side. He wrapped the prioress in his arms, cradling her head against his chest as if she were a small child. Kat gasped as a pink-white light enveloped them. The strength of their love, she realized, was every bit as powerful as the hideous flames of evil that now engulfed Hugh and Isobel. She reached a tentative hand toward the priest and the prioress until her fingertips brushed the edges of the light. A jolt of energy raced through her. It was as though she’d found a blazing fireplace after hours of wandering through the freezing outdoors.

  Surprised, Kat plunged her hand deeper into the aura.

  “Yes,” she heard Aunt Frannie say. “Yes, Katerina. You need only ask for this, and it is yours.”

  Kat turned to stare at her aunt. Francesca’s body lay lifeless on the ground.

  “It is a battle,” Kat heard, “but you do not fight alone. You never have, Katerina. And you certainly don’t fight unarmed.”

  Alys and Gregory did not lift their eyes to the horror unfolding before them, but Kat, strengthened, raised her chin and turned to face the enemy.

  Hugh’s body, nearly obscured by flames, raised itself above Isobel. Only his eyes remained clearly defined, their vacant glow reflecting the flames that leapt from Hugh’s flesh. Isobel, mercifully, had lost consciousness.

  “You…are…mine.” The voice that rang through the clearing had never belonged to Hugh. No man could possess such deep, thundering tones.

  What was left of Hugh’s body rammed forward with a mighty thrust. Kat rose slowly as Isobel’s body ignited, bursting into fire beneath Hugh’s writhing form. The flames leapt higher and higher, sending spirals of smoke into the darkening sky.

  Kat checked her armor. Helmet, breastplate, shield, sword—all was in place. She straightened to her full height.

  “Julia,” she called across the clearing. “Come out. You are here; let me see you.”

  At first, only the crackling of flames met her ears. Then a rumble began, so low in frequency that it nearly shook the ground upon which she stood. Kat became vaguely aware that Alys and Gregory now flanked her on either side. They’d brought their powerful aura with them, although she was not certain that either of them even knew it existed.

  The rumbling increased. A tiny fireball of gleaming light shot from the heart of the flame. It danced, agitated, darting about like a firefly trapped in a jar. It was followed by a translucent black shape no bigger than a fist, discernable from the fire’s smoke only by its thick, greasy texture.

  “Julia.” Kat’s voice stayed steady. “Come back to us.”

  The rumbling grew even louder, echoing like thunder through Kat’s ears. The flames diminished as, from the depths of the blazing pyre, a rolling mountain of dark vapor began to emerge. It roiled and seethed as it grew larger, towering above them.

  “No!” The deep voice boomed through the clearing. “Julia is dead, Katerina! You can no longer possess her!”

  Kat gripped her sword. “Her body lives, Asteroth.”

  A strong wind gusted over them, whipping Kat’s hair from her face and making her squint. She raised her voice above the whistling of the gale. “Julia was never yours. She has free will, Asteroth, and she never chose to follow you. Julia, come back to us!”

  Asteroth’s laughter ricocheted around them. “Once again, Katerina believes herself the lawyer of the universe. Perhaps your ability to fabricate an analysis for any given situation is well prized in the physical realm. In my reality, you are little more than amusing!”

  “Obviously, I am much more, Asteroth,” Kat said through clenched teeth. “Because if I weren’t, you wouldn’t need to get me out of your way, would you? Somehow, I matter more than you care to share.”

  A howl tore the air, although Kat couldn’t tell if the sound came from Asteroth or from the wind.

  “Julia!” she called again.

  The little fireball bounced in response.

  “Julia, return to your body,” Kat ordered, eyes on the vapor. It was changing, taking on a shape of some sort.

  The ball of light skittered through the air, stopping to hover over Julia’s body. The earth rumbled. The fireball hesitated, quivering.

  “Pay no attention to him,” Kat said. “I’m your mother, Julia. Do as I say. It’s okay to go back into your body now.”

  “If she does,” Asteroth said, “all hell will descend upon you. Do you understand?”

  Kat squared her shoulders. The vapor seemed trying to acquire a shape now. The figure of a man wavered before them, made alternately of vapor and granite. She’d never seen Asteroth assume this form before. She wondered how tangible it could become.

  “Julia,” she said in a strong voice, “do what I told you to do. Return to us. Now.”

  The fireball dove toward Julia’s body, burying itself in the girl’s hair. The body began to glow, a soft, strong light radiating from the inside out.

  The wind whipped so violently that Kat, Alys, and Gregory had to cling to each other just to keep their balance. Then, as quickly as the wind had come, it vanished, leaving an eerie stillness in its wake. The silence in the clearing was broken only by the dying flames of what had once been Hugh and Isobel.

  The mountainous vapor remained, boiling before them in silence.

  “Mom?” Julia sat on the ground, one hand pressed against her forehead.

  Kat raced to her daughter’s side, pulling Julia against her as if she would never again let her go.

  An ominous roar sounded in the distance as the sky grew dark.

  36

  “K AT!” S TEPHEN REACHED FOR THE ALTAR. H E HAD DROPPED to his knees somehow, although he couldn’t remember doing so.

  A gentle hand landed on his shoulder. He looked up to see the old man behind him, Claire by his side.

  “Do you understand what you’ve seen?” the man asked.

  Stephen felt his mouth move, but no words came out. Understand? Was that even possible? He swallowed hard and tried again. This time, he found words.

  “That huge black shape…that’s Asteroth.”

  The man nodded. “In essence. He has lost the body he borrowed, of course. And, thanks to our Katerina, he has nearly lost this opportunity to reach the child of light.”

  “Child of light!” Stephen nearly spat the words. “Everyone throws that phrase around like I know what it
means. I don’t even know which of my children is supposed to be the child of light!”

  “No,” the man said. “But someday you will. All you need to understand at this moment is that you must protect your wife.”

  “Protect her?” Dazed, Stephen slowly rose to his feet. He checked the image flickering against the altar. Asteroth loomed above Kat, who held Julia tightly in her arms. Francesca lay motionless at the feet of the priest and the prioress. Protect Kat? He’d never felt so helpless in his life.

  “There’s nothing I can do,” he said. “You, on the other hand, seem capable. Bring them back. Get them out of there.”

  The man smiled but shook his head. “If we bring them back now, we bring Asteroth back along with them.”

  Stephen felt Claire’s hand steal into his own. He looked down at her. She stared back, green eyes wide in her pale face.

  “I’ll try to help, Daddy,” she said, and her willingness to plow ahead where there was no obvious path strengthened his heart.

  He licked suddenly dry lips, then turned back to the man beside him. “You’re my angel of light, aren’t you?”

  The man nodded. “One of many.”

  Stephen thought for a moment. It was hard to make his mind conjure up anything coherent. Fear and doubt blasted most of his ideas before they even had a chance to crystallize. His own confusion irritated him. Reflexively, he raised the sword in his left hand and cut through the suffocating vines that curled around his head.

  “Very good,” the old man said. “You remembered your sword.”

  Stephen blinked, and the sword was gone. He was surrounded by the quiet stillness of the chapel, with the old man and Claire beside him.

  “The sword of truth,” the man said. “It will cut through the tendrils of evil every time.”

  “How did I just do that?” Stephen asked.

  The man merely smiled.

  Stephen lowered his arm. “All right. There won’t be any answers. Just do me a favor, okay? Don’t turn this into a bad party game. Don’t make me guess. Tell me what to do. I’ll listen, no questions asked.”

  The man nodded again. Then, without another word, he placed both hands firmly on Stephen’s shoulders and turned him to face the altar.

  Kat’s eyes widened as the greasy black cloud grew more consistently human in shape. Soot rained down from the rough head materializing nearly twenty feet above her.

  “Mom!” Julia gripped her hand so tightly that Kat winced. “What is that?”

  Kat shook her head as the outline of broad shoulders appeared.

  A low voice twisted through the wind: Kat-er-in-a.

  She fought back a swell of nausea, then leaned over Francesca’s motionless body. “Come on, Aunt Frannie,” she said, jostling her. “We need you. Wake up.”

  “Katerina.” Alys dropped to her knees beside her. “She cannot hear you. She is with our Lord, now. Her fight is ended.”

  “No,” Kat said through clenched teeth. “That can’t be. She wouldn’t leave me here like this. If Aunt Frannie is gone, then evil has won.”

  Alys sent Gregory a glance. Kat read it easily. They pitied her, believed that her inability to accept Francesca’s death stemmed from grief. She hated being misunderstood. She longed to shake them until they recognized how desperately she needed Aunt Frannie to rise from the ground and lead this battle.

  She turned back to Asteroth. The imposing figure was defined to the waist, now. Its broad chest rippled with muscles. Massive arms bulged with barely confined strength as the figure flexed its thick, heavy fingers. Facial features shifted constantly, reminding them that this creature was still composed more of vapor than granite. Still, the face was defined enough that all could recognize its sneer.

  Kat-er-in-a. The syllables bubbled over themselves. They sounded as if drawn from the depths of a well.

  “Leave now,” Kat told Gregory and Alys in a low voice. “You have done more for us than I can ever thank you for. You deserve better than to share in Asteroth’s hatred.”

  “What will become of you if we leave?” Alys asked.

  The vapor swirled into two thickly sculpted thighs. The creature’s mouth opened and closed like a huge ventriloquist’s dummy with a life of its own.

  “I don’t know,” Kat said. Her hand trailed across Frannie’s forehead and down her cheek, coming to rest against her cold fingers.

  Alys’s hand landed atop hers.

  “We stand with you,” Gregory said. “Our Lord challenged such evil. How can we not rebuke it in His name?”

  Kat closed her eyes. Aunt Frannie wasn’t coming back. There’d be no return-to-life miracle where Francesca leapt to her feet and single-handedly vanquished the foe. Somehow, though, all that her aunt had taught her must mean something. What would Aunt Frannie tell her to do?

  “Look carefully, Katerina,” she heard Frannie say. “Use your spiritual eyes, not your physical ones.”

  Kat’s eyes flew open. “Did anyone hear that?” she asked.

  Julia looked up, eyebrows raised. Alys and Gregory once again exchanged glances.

  Kat straightened and placed shaky fingertips to her temples. Whether anyone else heard anything was irrelevant: this could be their only hope.

  Spiritual eyes. Like she knew how to find them.

  But she instantly remembered the light that had surrounded Alys and Gregory. It had been born of love, but its energy, its intensity, went far beyond modern-day sentiments of hearts and flowers. She’d forgotten all about it the minute she’d seen Asteroth begin to manifest before her. Now she saw that to remove herself from the power of that light would be a huge mistake. Perhaps Aunt Frannie had been literal as well as figurative when she’d told her to stay in the light.

  Kat opened her eyes and turned toward Alys and Gregory. Sure enough, she could once again see the light surrounding them, that brilliant white aura tinged with pink and gold.

  “This light is your homeland,” she heard Frannie say, and while she didn’t quite know what that meant, she understood enough to know that she needed to stay within this force field of light if she had any hope of beating the darkness that spread like ink before her.

  “Extend the light,” she heard. This time, the voice did not belong to Aunt Frannie. She forced herself not to analyze it. It was amazing enough that she knew what to do. In her mind, she quickly wrapped Julia in the light, making sure that the edges enveloped her aunt, too.

  “All right,” she said, startled by the clarity of her own voice, “here’s what we do. Imagine us bathed in a column of light. Enclose us within it. Don’t let anything interrupt it.”

  “But…” Julia’s frightened gaze focused on the behemoth before them. The huge arms were moving now, although nothing had materialized below the knee.

  “Smoke and mirrors,” Kat said briefly. “Don’t trust it. Don’t even look at it. Fill your mind with light and nothing else.”

  Julia hesitated. “But I don’t understand how—”

  “Just do it, Julia,” Kat said. “Do it now!”

  “Extend the light,” the old man said, and suddenly the column of light Stephen had noticed around the priest and the prioress leapt forward to enfold Kat, Julia, and Francesca as well. Or had Francesca already been lighted? He couldn’t remember.

  The man smiled. “Your wife hears well,” he said. “Her spirit is stronger than she knows. She’ll be quite a force to contend with once her mind accepts what her heart knows as truth.”

  Stephen knew better than to waste time asking questions that started with “how” or “why.” He watched as the column of light grew brighter.

  “Are they safe in there, or what?” he asked.

  “Somewhat,” the man said. “It’s a curious thing, the light. It has the power to protect, but it can only be maintained through faith. Doubt eats holes in it, holes that darkness can easily penetrate.”

  “Can they destroy Asteroth this way?”

  “They’ll probably use all their energy to keep
the light steady. I doubt they’ll have any left to destroy him. They’re in physical reality, remember. It takes quite a lot of concentration to make spiritual light effective in the physical world.”

  Stephen tried to process the information as quickly as he received it. “What about Asteroth? Isn’t it hard for him to manifest in the physical world?”

  “Yes.”

  “So if they were to attack him—”

  “He’s like an iceberg, my friend. So much of him is unseen by their eyes. I suspect that the best course of action is to confront him in the spiritual rather than the physical realm. The light is more easily used there.”

  Stephen gestured wildly toward the altar. “Well, how are they supposed to know that? Do you plan to tell them?”

  The man nailed him with a level gaze. “That’s not their task,” he said.

  “Oh!” Claire’s gasp made both men turn her way. “Look, Daddy! There’s a hole in the light, right near Julia’s head!”

  “Ah.” The man nodded slowly. “Your sister has doubts. Hmm. That will need to be repaired before the demon senses it.”

  Sure enough, the giant’s mammoth head began a slow swivel in Julia’s direction. His craggy eyebrows raised in recognition.

  “Warn them.” Stephen gripped the man’s wrist. “Kat heard your voice before, didn’t she?”

  “Katerina is doing what she must do,” the man said. “You can fix this one. Don’t look at me like that. It’s high time you took your post. Fix it, Stephen.”

  Stephen opened his mouth to protest, then remembered that he had promised to do as he was told. With a helpless shrug, he closed his eyes and concentrated on the column.

  A strange hum sounded in his ears, a dense block of musical notes stacked one atop the other and crowned by a high, clear frequency. It brought to mind pure-aired mountaintops, the crisp, invigorating bite of clean, salty ocean air. The cathedral chapel fell away until he stood in the midst of undefined gray space. His sword once again rested securely in his hand. It glowed with light, shimmering until the gray around him crackled with bright points of energy. Warmth and vitality coursed through him, as if years had slipped from his body.