The Open Channel

by Jill Morrow

  Asteroth gave a visible start, then turned toward the force field of light. It danced and glowed, infused with a brilliant life all its own. The dark gaseous vapor outside its border had diminished in both size and density. It hovered beyond the force field as if uncertain of what to do next.

  “Hmm,” Francesca said. “It appears you’re losing your physical energy source.”

  “Katerina,” Asteroth said, almost to himself. “I must have Katerina.”

  “Good luck,” Francesca said. “It doesn’t look like you have enough energy to sustain whatever form you’ve assumed in physical reality.”

  He turned to her with a snarl, but Stephen caught something else in his expression, something he’d never seen there before: fear.

  “Francesca,” Asteroth started slowly, “do you mean to remain in the spirit?”

  Francesca hesitated, then turned toward Stephen. “You must watch carefully. Very shortly, you will be able to enter the fourteenth century long enough to pull Katerina and Julia out of it.”

  “He cannot!” Asteroth’s form flickered with the intensity of his response. “I will not allow him to interfere!”

  Francesca’s eyes flashed. “You don’t have a choice. What will you do, Asteroth? If you try to maintain a physical manifestation in the fourteenth century, you’ll lose spiritual strength. If you pull your energy away from physical reality, you’ve lost your access to Katerina.”

  He stared at her. “No, I haven’t,” he whispered. “You know very well that I haven’t. But are you willing to make the sacrifice?”

  Stephen touched Francesca’s arm. “How will I know when to go?”

  “You’ll know,” she said, gaze still locked with Asteroth’s. “The time is coming fast. Stay alert.”

  “It’s very beautiful,” Alys said, and Kat knew that she could finally see the light in all its glory.

  “Yes,” Julia said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  The light shot up all around them in fountains of sparkling radiance. It illuminated each of them, bathing them in comfortable warmth.

  “I wish I could see beyond it.” Kat searched for a weak point that could serve as a peephole.

  “Why?” Gregory asked. “You know what awaits on the other side. Why would you want to see that?”

  “Well…” Kat floundered, at a momentary loss for words. “I just want to know what we’re supposed to do next.”

  A half smile crossed Gregory’s face. “I don’t think you’ll learn that by studying the darkness. Our answers lie in the light.”

  She wanted to argue. It made no logical sense whatsoever that they should just sit here, convinced that they would know what to do next but not actually doing anything to acquire the necessary information. Still, she knew that he was right. This was the antithesis of a rational legal case where she gathered all available facts and then planned her strategy. This required a blind leap of faith.

  “So,” Gregory prodded gently, “deep in your soul, what do you think we must do now?”

  Kat swallowed. The answer was there, even though it made no intellectual sense. “We’re doing it. Let’s make this light as strong and bright as we can. Let’s make it a veritable wall.”

  She heard more stones hit the ground as she allowed herself to rest within the vital glow of the light. That was followed by another thud, and then another, as rock after rock apparently joined the pile growing outside the force field.

  Asteroth broke the gaze he and Francesca held, turning his eyes from her to Stephen. Stephen flinched but stood his ground. The demon’s form appeared more solid than it had a moment ago. Stephen once again noticed the muscled definition of his chest, the fine beads of perspiration on his brow.

  “Asteroth, you’re leaving the fourteenth century,” Francesca said.

  He ignored her and turned to Stephen.

  “Think, Stephen Carmichael,” he said, tone dripping in pools of thick, rich caramel. “You say you don’t know which of your children is the child of light. Perhaps you speak truth. Maybe your mind does not know. But think deeper. Your soul knows. Who is the child of light?”

  Almost against his will, Stephen considered each of his children. Julia, who had somehow become a viaduct accessible to energies well beyond the borders of her daily existence. Claire, who had shown an uncanny comprehension for the language and ways of the spirit. And this unborn baby, a child whose birth offered so much possibility and potential.

  Francesca’s sharp voice cut through his reverie. “What does it matter, Asteroth? The prophecy is fulfilled. You know it is. You’ve lost your chance to alter the course of the child’s birth.”

  Asteroth glared at her with such raw hatred that Stephen averted his eyes. He stared instead at the vapor outside the force field. It could hardly be considered menacing. It was simply a little ball of darkness bobbing through the air. Little remained of its former intensity or hulking shape.

  Asteroth’s form was heavy and solid now. Tendrils of dark smoke curled from his body like steam from a hot tar road. He unclenched his right fist, holding his palm open. The tiny gaseous ball dropped into it, leaving a scaly gray mark on his palm. Instantly, the gray scales snaked across his body, covering his skin completely until he stood before them in wretched ugliness. His startling turquoise eyes had grown black and opaque. Blond hair still sprouted from his head; the wooden beads clasped at the end of his braids clicked against his scaly back.

  “Asteroth in all his glory,” Francesca said. “Now, Stephen. Walk toward Katerina.”

  A strangled snarl escaped Asteroth’s mouth. It sounded more animal than human, as if his vocal cords were in a state of transition.

  Stephen took a tentative step toward the force field, then broke into a run. From the corner of his eye he saw Asteroth lunge forward. He instinctively recoiled, but did not break his stride.

  Francesca aimed the tip of her sword. A beam of light shot forward, etching a razor-thin line in the ground. Bars of light shot up from it, nearly knocking Asteroth backward with their force. The line of blazing spears continued until it had encircled Asteroth in a cage of glowing flame.

  “You have no authority, Francesca!” Asteroth shouted.

  “I don’t fight in my name,” she replied, holding the sword steady.

  Asteroth aimed a powerful punch at the barricade. It held fast. “You cannot keep this light strong enough to contain me. It is beyond your strength and ability.”

  “I can hold you as long as I please,” Francesca said, glancing over in time to see Stephen reach the force field. He hesitated.

  “Adjust your armor and step inside,” Francesca called.

  “But—” He waved a helpless arm in Asteroth’s direction.

  “Never mind him,” Francesca said, turning to face her nemesis.

  Asteroth paced in his lighted cage. “Very well, Francesca. They must return this way. I can wait.”

  She said nothing.

  Asteroth turned suddenly. “You did not answer my earlier question. Do you plan to remain in the spirit?”

  She raised her chin. “I plan to keep you as far away from Katerina as I possibly can.”

  She checked the force field. Stephen was gone, carried into the fourteenth century with more light than she’d ever known she could send.

  42

  “D AD!” J ULIA ’S VOICE SHOT THROUGH KAT ’S EARS. S HE opened her eyes to see Stephen just within the force field, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the light. He looked so wonderfully familiar that she could only sit and stare as her mind struggled to believe that he was not an illusion.

  “Kat.” He dropped to his knees beside her, gathering her tightly in his arms and rocking her against his chest as if he’d never let her go. His lips brushed her forehead. No illusion could feel this complete. He had to be real.

  Her fingers traced his cheek. “Stephen, how did—”

  “No time.” He scrambled to his feet, tugging her up beside him. “I’ve come to take you home
, but we need to move quickly. Julie—” He pulled his daughter to his side in a loose hug. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded. “Can you see the light, Dad?”

  “Yes. I can feel it, too. It’s downright hot in here.”

  “We did that.” Julia looked a little smug.

  “God did that,” Gregory corrected. “We were merely His instruments.”

  Kat turned pink as she realized she’d momentarily forgotten all about the priest and the prioress. “Father Gregory, Dame Alys, this is my husband, Stephen Carmichael. Stephen, we owe Gregory and Alys the world.”

  Stephen instantly extended a hand toward the priest. Surprised, Kat realized that the bar for the extraordinary had been lowered for her husband. He didn’t seem to find it at all odd that he now spoke to medieval people.

  “Thank you, both of you,” he said. “Please, forgive our rudeness. There’s no time to explain. Kat, Julia, our window to home won’t stay open very long. Claire is there waiting for us. We have to go.”

  Kat hesitated. “What’s outside this force field? Last we looked, there was a huge manifestation of Asteroth just waiting to pounce.”

  Stephen shook his head. “There’s nothing out there now but a big pile of rocks.”

  Alys’s jaw dropped. “I want to see it,” she said.

  “Follow me.” Stephen firmly grasped Kat’s hand in his own and stepped through the curtain of light. Julia paused briefly, then followed her parents. Gregory and Alys emerged last, surprised to find themselves in recognizable surroundings.

  “Look!” Kat pointed at the force field. It broke apart as they left its protective circle, tiny pieces of it raining down upon them like a gentle shower of shimmering confetti. She half expected the sparks to burn as they grazed her skin, but each one brought a sense of peace, the understanding that all could work as it should.

  “Ah.” A smile crossed Alys’s face as the sparkling light fell down upon her. “The air feels different—sweeter, somehow, and scented with roses. I want to feel this way forever.”

  Gregory took her hand. “You can. As it was created through us once, so it can be again. It is always within our reach.”

  Kat opened her mouth to ask exactly how he knew this, then shut it. The truth of his words nestled within her heart. Perhaps the curtains of light would never again appear so tangible. That would not mean, however, that this beautiful light did not exist. It would be forever theirs to request and use.

  “Is this what you were talking about?” Stephen gestured toward a huge pile of rocks.

  “Unbelievable.” Kat slipped her hand out of his and approached the rubble. Rocks of all sizes and density lay in a hill before them. They looked scorched.

  “This used to be human in form,” Kat said, reaching out a tentative finger. Despite its burned appearance, the rock she touched felt like an ice cube.

  Stephen’s arm encircled her waist. “Not anymore,” he said. “That physical image of Asteroth is gone.”

  Kat turned toward him. “Is all of Asteroth gone?”

  She could tell that he didn’t want to answer. His green eyes flickered away from her, then returned to hold her gaze. He placed a firm hand on each of her shoulders. “Listen to me, Kat. You’ve been brave for so long. You need to be brave just a little longer. We will meet Asteroth on our way back to the twenty-first century, and he will do everything he can to get to you.”

  She could not help the shiver that raced through her, even though the words came as no surprise.

  “I know,” she said.

  “Okay. Remember, you are not alone. I’m with you. And Francesca—”

  Her heart leapt. “Aunt Frannie! She’s—”

  Stephen shook his head. “I don’t know what she is, Kat. She’s in the spirit; I know that much, and that’s all. She’s doing her best to keep Asteroth at bay, to buy us the time we need to get home. You and Julia must stay strong. Julie, can I count on you to do that?”

  Julia swallowed hard. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll think of the light. I’ll remember the force field.”

  Kat felt Stephen’s arm propel her away from the clearing.

  “Wait!” she cried, breaking free. She turned back toward Alys and Gregory, who stood as still as statues not far from where the light had once dazzled them all. “I can’t ever thank you enough. Please, forgive us for bringing such chaos upon you. I feel as if I should take you with us, as if I—”

  Gregory raised a hand to stop her rambling flow of words. “Do you think that God works His plans for you alone? We, too, have surely benefited by His workings here.”

  Kat stared from Gregory to Alys, once again longing for the logical explanation she already knew could not exist. She had to admit that Alys wore a mantle of serenity that had not existed before. Gregory, too, seemed to have acquired an aura of strength not previously possessed.

  “And, think of it,” Alys added. “We cannot even know yet how God will use this knowledge revealed to us. We will pray for you, Katerina. Do the same for us.”

  “Yes…” Kat’s voice trailed as Stephen took her hand and led her away. She noticed Julia at his side as a sudden wind pushed her hair from her face and filled her ears with noise.

  Francesca stood guard outside Asteroth’s cage, her sword aimed toward its burning bars. A ribbon of light shot from the sword’s tip, reenergizing each bar in turn. She studied the light. This was not the peaceful, caressing light she remembered from her most focused moments of meditation. It was not even the hot, powerful protection she’d experienced while in the spirit. This light was razor-sharp, each particle of energy crackling and jumping like water droplets flung against a hot skillet. This light meant business.

  Asteroth, too, seemed to recognize the nature of his entrapment. He’d paced away from the blazing barrier and now stood in the center of its circle, head bowed and fists clenched. Francesca could sense him rifling through strategies in search of his next move. His form flickered, changing beneath her gaze from gray scaly demon to blond giant and back again.

  He was weakening. Well, of course. Francesca knew that her own strength came from an endless source of light. Asteroth had estranged himself from that source eons ago. His energy came from his consumption of the wicked and the hapless, from sucking dry those souls who would never commit themselves to the light. He was a parasite, a scavenger who thrived on the destruction of others. He required constant feeding.

  How much energy still fueled him?

  “You grow weaker,” she said.

  He grunted.

  She wondered if psychology worked as well in the spirit as it often did in the physical. “What is left for you to do, Asteroth? You can’t summon your acolytes or I will call the angels of the light to fight beside me. You aren’t strong enough to battle them. Shouldn’t you leave us while you still can?”

  His spine straightened. The upper part of his torso assumed the form of the regal blond prince. The lower part remained encased in platelike scales.

  “Katerina,” he said, his tone still more bestial than human.

  “But you can’t have her! How can you possibly hope to claim her when you are so weakened, trapped behind a barrier of light that you can’t possibly destroy?”

  Asteroth took a deliberate step forward. The rest of his body regained human form, and to her dismay, Francesca realized that he was stronger than she’d thought.

  “You forget,” he said, and his voice fell smooth upon her ears, “that the consumption of sweet Isobel has nourished me well. And, Francesca, this ‘barrier,’ as you call it, will vanish when you do.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Asteroth. What makes you think I’ll vanish?”

  He smiled. “Because, Francesca, although you meet me in spirit now, your nature is still very human. You will go back. You must go back.”

  Pounding footsteps saved her the trouble of a reply. Stephen raced toward her, Katerina and Julia close behind him.

  “Aunt Frannie!” Katerina catapulted into he
r. Francesca instinctively wrapped an arm around her niece, holding her so close that she could smell the delicate scent of her hair. A flurry of memories washed over her; this woman she embraced so tightly was all at once the child she’d loved so thoroughly, the teenager she’d worried about nightly, the young adult she’d regularly prayed would find peace.

  “Oh, Aunt Frannie, I thought I’d lost you forever. I thought—” Kat suddenly noticed the sword in her aunt’s hand. She pulled back, her gaze following the stream of brilliant light from sword tip to barrier. She staggered backward a step as her eyes met Asteroth’s.

  Asteroth gave a sweeping bow. “We seem destined to meet again and again and again, Katerina.”

  Stephen appeared at his wife’s side, Julia in tow. “Let’s get out of here, Frannie,” he said in a low voice.

  “Yes, Frannie,” Asteroth said, each syllable distinct. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Francesca watched his eyes travel up and down Katerina as he spoke. His tongue protruded from between his lips, misshapen and too large for his mouth.

  She kept her sword steady and her eyes trained on him. “Katerina, Stephen, what do you see beyond us, over my shoulder?”

  “Space,” Stephen said. “Lots of it. It looks like someone went wild with a fog machine.”

  “Run toward it as fast as you can. Keep running and don’t look back.”

  “And you won’t look back either, will you, Francesca?” Asteroth’s voice dripped with honey. He stuck his head between two bars of light. He remained in human form, but a small puddle of drool formed just outside the barrier as he stared at Kat.

  “Aunt Frannie.” Kat grasped her aunt’s wrist. “You’re coming with us.”

  “Kat-er-in-a.” Asteroth’s arm reached through the bar, fingers groping to make contact with his prey.

  Francesca stared at him, amazed that evil did not know how disgusting and repulsive it actually was.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not going with you.”