The Open Channel

by Jill Morrow

  Kat turned pink. One corner of Stephen’s mouth twitched, as it always did when he was trying not to find something automatically ridiculous.

  “Well.” Francesca’s words ricocheted off the stone wall. “It’s high time your spiritual nature intruded on the rest of your oh-so-busy lives. I can’t imagine how you’ve both kept it out for so long.”

  Stephen’s shoulders slumped, but Kat’s chin jerked up. Francesca recognized the gesture from as far back as her niece’s kindergarten days. Katerina was a powder keg just hoping for a match.

  They rounded the rear corner of the church. To their left was the Lady Chapel, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, a blue and gold island of peace in the midst of a raging world.

  “Here.” Francesca entered and settled herself into a pew.

  “I still don’t get it.” Kat frowned. “I thought you always meditated at home.”

  “Not this time. I won’t go back to that place alone.”

  “Place?”

  “That vision. I need to launch myself from a safe place with good, strong vibes to it. This chapel crossed my mind. I always go with my light-guided intuitions.”

  She’d spent years trying to dull the sharp memory of that vision. She remembered herself alone in her living room, settling into the comfortable rhythm of meditation. She remembered greeting the pulsing light that always engulfed her whenever the confines of physical reality melted away from her consciousness. She knew she could remember the vision that followed, too. Unfortunately, it had come with dark perimeters and a curious suction toward a vacuum that she never wanted to face again.

  She was vulnerable. That sooty darkness had left a crack within her that she feared could be pried open once more. She still awoke gasping from unsettling dreams, unable to recall details, yet certain that a gaping chasm had once again sucked her in. She had nearly slipped fifteen years ago. There was no guarantee that she wouldn’t slip again.

  She couldn’t risk it.

  “I can’t do this without at least one of you,” she said. “The protection you can give me is vital.”

  Stephen hesitated, then slid into the pew beside her.

  “I’m not good at this,” he said with a helpless shrug. “It’s been years since I got those weird messages, and since then…well, Frannie, I don’t even know what I think about this spiritual stuff anymore.”

  She studied him, a gentle smile playing about her mouth. He’d mellowed over the years, losing a compass that had previously operated only where money and women were concerned. Katerina and the girls had played a large part in that transformation, but there was more to it than that. She would never understand why people expected “spiritual stuff” to arrive with bells and whistles. All Stephen had to do was gaze back over the course of his own life to see a trail of miracles.

  “You don’t have to be good at this,” she said. “You just have to trust that God is good at it.”

  He threw a sideways glance at his wife. Kat gave a barely perceptible snort.

  Stephen gingerly reached for Francesca’s hand. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Close your eyes and pray for clarity.” She closed her own eyes, reassured by the pressure of his hand in hers. She noted that Katerina remained standing outside the pew. That didn’t matter. She only needed one other.

  As always, the radiant light welcomed her. For as far back as she could remember, it had always awaited her, strong and complete, glowing with a serenity and love that she’d never been able to duplicate in her physical existence. Reaching the light was never a problem; leaving it was. Never did she feel as whole as when she lost herself within this presence.

  The light brightened. Stephen’s prayers must have connected with her own.

  Usually she would step toward the light, allow herself to become immersed within it. Now, in her mind’s eye, she regretfully turned her back to it. Its warmth urged her forward.

  She drew in one long, slow breath, then carefully exhaled. Another.

  A tiny spark of fear flickered within her. She had to concentrate harder than usual to keep her breathing deep and even. Finally, she drifted a level deeper, as if someone had administered a touch of anesthesia.

  A picture flashed across her mind. It took only an instant to recognize one of the steep, narrow streets of Lincoln. She frowned. It was Lincoln as she’d known it this summer, yet different. These streets were not paved. These windows had few glass panes.

  Images flew quickly through her head, requiring her full attention. It was as though she raced through a gallery wing of paintings. Over here was the sanctuary of Saint Leo’s, the neighborhood church she’d known since childhood. Next came a solemn, dark-haired girl dressed in white, rosary beads spilling through the fingers of her right hand. Francesca gasped as she recognized her own First Communion.

  Next came a baby, but not the one she sought. This one rested in her mother’s arms, the sleeve of her white christening gown clutched in a plump little fist. A stab of yearning pierced Francesca’s heart. The baby was Katerina, but it was the mother she longed to hold. Though young and glowing in the mind’s eye, Lucia had been dead for nearly forty years, now.

  There was no time to think. The images piled up even faster, as if somebody had pushed a fast-forward button. Glimpses of places and times long gone raced through her in a frenzied version of This Is Your Life.

  Then the reel of memories slowed. Francesca found herself catapulted back fifteen years, back to the time when Katerina and Stephen had first met. She saw them at Angel Café, glowering at each other across a table as they had so often done during those surreal months of Asteroth. There was Tia Melody, the psychic who’d allowed the demon access to her body and their lives. Her purple eyes glittered behind rhinestone glasses. Her platinum hair formed a fuzzy aureole about her weathered face.

  Suddenly, Francesca saw the burned facade of Tia’s house as the aftermath of that last horrible battle smashed through her mind.

  She swallowed away a pang of nausea and murmured a quick prayer for Tia’s soul.

  And there, seated calmly in the center of a pink-white mist, was the baby.

  The heat on Francesca’s back grew more intense as she studied the child. It studied her back, green eyes wide, little fists pumping at the air.

  Something deep in Francesca’s heart longed to cup the tiny face in her hands. Its features seemed so familiar. Julia and Claire each possessed a pair of those wide green eyes. In fact, Francesca could assess each individual aspect of this baby’s face and find its counterpart in one of her great-nieces.

  Yet the child was not identical to either of them. The vision unmistakably blended both Katerina and Stephen’s features, creating a baby that only they could have produced. The mind’s eye, however, had blended the genes in a thoroughly original way.

  What child was this?

  She recoiled as an unwelcome voice shot through her head: It is me you might ask.

  Asteroth.

  A ribbon of frosty air wrapped across her forehead. Reluctantly, Francesca raised her eyes from the light of the baby and gazed toward the empty darkness lapping the edge of the mist. She recognized this odd delineation between light and dark. She’d seen it during the battle with Asteroth. It was here she’d been pried open, left vulnerable.

  The darkness receded, lightening to a fuzzy gray. An odd half-light of orange flashed through it. Now Francesca could see buildings, their soft outlines solidifying before her eyes. Her ears picked up the mellow trill of a woodwind. A pungent whiff of thyme made her stifle a sneeze, then gulp for more.

  A voice floated through the air, a true, clear tenor teasing the notes of the woodwind.

  An expected question danced before her: Do you want to know more?

  She swallowed and returned her gaze to the baby. The vision was fading away, taking with it the key to all danger at home.

  Whether she wanted to know was irrelevant. She had to know.

  “Yes,” she said. “Show me.”


  An enclave of buildings suddenly surrounded her. She stood in the midst of a courtyard, the warm sun beating down on her bare head. An iron gate rested shut behind her. Beyond it she saw a small house, bits of straw and pebbles poking through the mortar between its stones. Its wooden door was ajar. She noted a hard-packed dirt floor strewn with rushes inside.

  Francesca took a tentative step forward. A short cloister connected a small church to a solid building. Like the house outside the gate, these structures were made of gray stone. Francesca squinted as she took a closer look. Arched windows lined the wall of the church. The windows in the other building were square. Heavy wooden shutters blocked several.

  She knew a convent when she saw one. She’d once lived in one, after all. That solid building with the turret would be the chapter house and refectory. She guessed the wing that extended toward the rear housed a dormitory.

  Laughter from the cloister made her jump. Two figures passed between the columns, heads close in conversation. Francesca froze, vulnerable in the wide open courtyard. There was no use darting away. Any sudden movement would attract attention.

  The figures stopped, then turned to peer across the courtyard. Francesca’s hand fluttered to her throat as their gazes drew near. She drew herself up, steeled to speak.

  Their stares plowed right through her.

  They couldn’t see her.

  The taller woman leaned her elbows against the edge of the cloister wall. The other woman stood beside her, arms crossed against an ample stomach.

  Propelled by unbearable curiosity, Francesca took a tentative step toward them.

  “Mark it well,” the small one said in broad, flat tones. “Isobel is gone again.”

  The unfamiliar accent drew Francesca even closer.

  Both women were smaller than she and dressed in a style she’d encountered only in history books. White wimples veiled their heads. The older one, short and stout, wore hers so low upon her forehead that it covered part of her bushy gray brows. The younger one had pushed hers back as far as it could go, revealing a broad expanse of white forehead and the start of a blond hairline. She wore a high-necked azure gown girdled by a leather band low on her hips. She tugged at a scarlet cloak trimmed with tattered fur. Her companion wore a green gown partially covered by a deep blue tunic. A metal pomander dangled from a chain about her neck.

  “She did not come to Matins this morning,” the older woman said with a sniff. “If she were not kin to Madame Alys…”

  Francesca blinked rapidly as she sorted through the clues. They spoke the language of nuns, but their clothing certainly did not identify a particular order. If anything, they seemed on their way to a costume party. And their voices! She had to concentrate very hard to understand the odd intonations. She felt as though she were somehow translating a foreign language, as if she shouldn’t be able to understand them at all.

  The younger woman’s eyes darted from side to side, reminding Francesca of a cat who knows exactly where his prey likes best to hide.

  “I know where she goes,” the woman said.

  “Dame Joan, I’ll have no idle gossip!”

  Joan sidled away, chin tilted coquettishly. “As you wish, Barbara.” Francesca saw that she couldn’t be older than eighteen. “If you really do not care to know—”

  “No, wait.” Barbara raised a pudgy hand. “Perhaps it is my duty to know her whereabouts. Then I may help guide her footsteps toward the path of God.”

  Dame Joan gave what Francesca could only call a smirk. “She goes with him.”

  “Who?”

  “The boarder. The one with the fine shoulders and magnificent legs.”

  The other woman sniffed. “I did not note them.”

  “Then you are dead, Barbara. That is all there is to it.”

  Barbara’s cheeks grew rosy. Then her hand landed on Joan’s arm. “How do you know this?”

  Their shoulders hunched as they drew together, heads touching. Francesca took several steps forward, but their words, rising and falling in a rhythmic cadence, were lost to her.

  A low hum started in her ears. Although the day was fair, a chilling vapor wrapped itself around her ankle. The image of the women fine-tuned itself. They’d seemed quite clear before, but now their contours grew even sharper. Her senses practically ached with the increased clarity. She saw that Dame Joan’s fair skin was sprinkled with badly powdered freckles. She caught a whiff of vinegar from the pomander dangling down Dame Barbara’s thick front.

  Her head began to throb. The chill at her ankle snaked about her leg, then twisted like a belt around her waist.

  The nuns had stopped talking and glared with disapproval across the courtyard. Francesca turned to follow their line of vision.

  The wrought-iron gate creaked open. A girl with hair the color of moonbeams sauntered through, each curve of her ripe body visible beneath the clingy fabric of her long midnight blue dress. Her eyes brushed past the tightly drawn lips of the sisters in the cloister. Infuriated by her insolence, they turned as one and swept into the church.

  The girl tossed her head and passed so close that Francesca could smell the cloying scent of rosewater clinging to her unwashed body.

  But Francesca barely noticed the girl. She stared instead beyond the gate. A tall, broad-shouldered man returned her gaze. His dark eyes nearly drilled a hole through her forehead. The frigid current continued up her spine, crackled through the air and ruffled the man’s long blond hair. His lips curved upward in an empty smile.

  “Welcome, Francesca,” he said as the girl entered the chapter house. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  A blast of wind blew through the cathedral chapel, rustling the altar cloth and knocking a pile of prayer cards to the floor. Kat jumped. Stephen’s eyes flew open as Francesca’s hand slipped from his grasp.

  The shrill beep of his watch alarm pierced the air. His pager whirred to life. From deep in her briefcase, Kat’s cell phone rang loudly.

  “My God!” Stephen leapt to his feet as Francesca’s limp body slid to the ground.

  7

  THE LINES OF THE COURTYARD WAVERED AS A JAGGED CURRENT raced from Francesca’s toes, through her body, and out her scalp. Crackling electricity jammed her hearing. Her hands instinctively flew to plug her ears, but the sound came from deep within and would not be blocked.

  Then the noise stopped. The tingling stopped as well, leaving her limbs loose and relaxed. Lightness such as she’d never known flooded through her. She wanted to float. In fact, she was surprised to find that she wasn’t floating.

  She felt no connection to human form. She remembered her body, of course. One didn’t inhabit a shell for so many years and then forget all about it. She simply no longer required its presence. Perhaps she might next express herself as a whiff of smoke, a vapor, a pulsing star. The freedom intoxicated her.

  She frowned. Not quite all of her being stood in this convent courtyard. A particle still rested in the body of the aging twenty-first-century ex-nun. Apparently, she still had a task to complete before she could totally relinquish her physical identity.

  She called her mind back to business. The vision of the baby. The recognition of Asteroth’s presence in Baltimore.

  With a sigh, she allowed the physical image of Francesca to once again encase her. The body wasn’t solid, but it granted her the identity she required. She examined her right hand. The gold band Francesca always wore glinted on her third finger.

  Her gaze met that of the man behind the gate. His figure stood solidly before her. How odd. She knew Asteroth to be a spirit…a fallen angel. Now that she’d regained use of her spiritual eyes, she’d expected to see beyond his temporal form and into the deeper dimensions of his nature. But this creature before her was clearly physical. He’d left distinct footsteps in the mud of the road. Even now, his shadow darkened the ground.

  His eyes widened slightly. “You have escaped the limitation of a physical body.”

  “Yes.” Francesca til
ted her head, considering. “And you have acquired it. How? Why?”

  His features contorted. “It matters not. I will crush you.”

  To her own surprise, she realized that she was not afraid. A comfortable sense of serenity flooded her.

  “You can’t,” she said. “You can’t unless I allow it.”

  She thought she detected a flicker of fear across his face, but it could have been a trick of the sun as it ducked behind a cloud.

  “Hear me well, Francesca. I am a far older spirit than you. You know more than you did, but not as much as you should.”

  “I know I walk in the light.”

  His knuckles whitened as he clenched his fist. “Do not cross me. All that I desire will come to pass. You are but an inconsequential nuisance, easily silenced.”

  “I will not cross you, sir,” said a gentle voice from the road. “Only pray cease to prattle when there is no one near to hear it. It unnerves me.”

  Asteroth swung around to face a brown-robed priest.

  The priest smiled. “Master Hugh, is it?” Francesca made note of Asteroth’s earthbound identity.

  “Yes.” Hugh’s eyes narrowed. “And you are Gregory.”

  Father Gregory nodded. Despite his good-natured tone, the stiffness of his slender form betrayed uneasiness. “You’ve been in residence for over a week now, Hugh. When do you resume your journey?”

  Hugh spun on a soft leather heel and strode into the guesthouse.

  Gregory slipped through the iron gate and walked noiselessly across the courtyard toward the chapter house, his smooth agility reminding Francesca of a cat. She watched as he disappeared through a doorway. She knew by now that she had crossed centuries as well as continents, yet Gregory possessed the sort of face that transcended eras. With those soft brown eyes, that prominent nose and chiseled chin, he could have belonged to sixteenth-century Italy, eighteenth-century France, or twenty-first-century America.

  So Asteroth was here, human in medieval Lincoln. And yet she’d felt his presence in modern Baltimore.