The Open Channel

by Jill Morrow

  Isobel’s broth-sopped bread had actually stopped halfway to her mouth as she’d noticed a look of glee flash across Dame Margaret’s rheumy face.

  “Oh, Father Gregory, our prayers are ever with our dearest Madame!” Dame Margaret’s voice had risen with excitement. “And you may surely depend upon me to assume the prioress’s duties in her absence. But whatever could be wrong?”

  Father Gregory had simply nodded his acknowledgment of her words and disappeared into the shadows beyond the doorway. His exit had left the nuns free to babble. What ailed their usually hale prioress?

  Isobel had blocked their chatter from her ears. She herself had been the subject of too many waggling tongues to pay much heed to what was said about others. Besides, she cared nothing about the workings of the priory. Let these silly chickens squawk amongst themselves over the handful of grain Father Gregory had tossed them. She had weightier matters to ponder.

  She did not care if Aunt Alys stayed tucked away out of sight for weeks. Kin or no, she thought the prioress haughty and cold. The less seen of her, the better. What bothered her more was that Hugh, too, had rendered himself invisible.

  Their last encounter had left her yearning for him, aching for the moment he would once again reach for her. She had expected that moment to come sooner rather than later. She wasn’t a child. She’d recognized the power of Hugh’s desire, known that he’d wanted to take her as much as she’d wanted to be taken.

  It had taken a great deal of effort to banish the fear that the strength of his passion might kill her. Now the thought of her own weakness embarrassed her. That fear had most likely been born of utter innocence, for surely any woman could reclaim innocence in the face of Hugh’s overpowering lust. He was far more commanding than any man she had ever known. Before the heavens, his power had even commanded her voice to obey.

  She’d awaited his summons all of yesterday and most of this day as well. As the afternoon shadows lengthened, she’d slipped through Saint Etheldreda’s gate to knock on the guesthouse door. Only an ashen silence had met her ears. No trace of sound echoed from within, not the supple tones of Hugh’s recorder, not even the scrape of stool legs against the hard-packed dirt floor. She’d felt the emptiness sink deep through her core as all hope drained away.

  But now it was night. Quiet, steady breathing filled the priory dormitory as the nuns slept the few hours between divine offices. Rising quickly, Isobel drew her mantle over her shift and padded on bare feet out the dormitory doors.

  She skittered across the silent courtyard, stopping midway to glance over her shoulder. Curious. Silent eyes seemed to follow her every move, though she could see by the light of the bright moon that she stood quite alone. She shivered in the fair, mild night.

  Her lips curved upward as she noticed the soft glow of candlelight in the guesthouse window. Hugh was there! Did he drown in thoughts of her? Did his arms ache to again press her tightly against his chest? She could not allow herself to even think of touching him—her legs would wobble so badly that they’d never carry her into his embrace.

  Swallowing against the flutter of her stomach, Isobel raced toward the priory gate and tugged at the handle.

  It held fast.

  Confused, she pulled again.

  It was locked.

  Outraged, she stamped her foot. Who possessed the gall to imprison her? Was it Dame Margaret, pompous and vigilant in her masquerade as prioress? Isobel wrapped each small hand around an iron bar and shook with all her might. The steadfast gate did not even rattle.

  Had Father Gregory trapped her in this fashion? Father Gregory, who carried on his slightly bent shoulders the bishop’s belief that the nuns of Saint Etheldreda’s required every ounce of aid to gain salvation?

  She stared at the guesthouse. She did not even possess a voice to call her beloved to her rescue. This new wave of frustration welled unchecked within her. Like a caged animal, she pulled herself along the length of the fence until she drew even with the guesthouse window.

  He was there—her beloved, her savior from this hideous, empty world. She pressed her face against the bars, longing for the magic to change her shape and slip through the barrier.

  Oh, how beautiful Hugh was. He sat slumped at a small table, eyes fixed on the candle burning at the center of it. His fair hair glowed in the dim light of the room. A thin band of gold encircled his head. Isobel drank in his chiseled profile, drawing a sharp breath as her eyes rested on the mouth that yesterday had pressed so insistently against her own.

  He wore a white tunic bound tightly at his narrow waist by a hunter green sash. His hose were also hunter green, and his feet were clad in soft leather. He’d draped a gray wolf skin across his shoulders, as soft and clean an animal skin as Isobel had ever seen. She longed to run her fingers through the fur almost as much as she longed to run them through Hugh’s hair.

  She watched him grip the metal goblet before him. The muscles in his arm bulged as he lifted it to his lips. Isobel stared, mesmerized by the motion of his throat as he swallowed.

  This time, she would not shy away. She would prove to him that she was his equal in matters of heart and body.

  Once again she shivered at the feeling that a silent sentinel observed her every move. She jerked her head to the side, searching for the person she knew was not there. As expected, she saw no one.

  Discomfited, she returned her attentions to Hugh. He, too, appeared restless. He had straightened, and now stared toward the guesthouse door. His eyebrows lowered; storm clouds crossed his visage. Isobel pulled her mantle more tightly about her shoulders. If he ever looked at her that way, she’d melt into the earth. She twisted to see what had peeved him so.

  There was nothing to see. Could thoughts alone raise such ire?

  Hugh leaned toward the door, his voice smoldering in a way she’d never heard. “You!”

  But no one had entered the guesthouse.

  He rose so suddenly that the stool he sat upon toppled to the ground. His muscled arm swept the goblet from the table, splattering the white wall with droplets of deep red wine.

  “Do not provoke me, Francesca. I will crush you!”

  Isobel stared as he strode toward the window—her window. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she scooped up a handful of pebbles and threw them at the opening. Hugh leapt backward as they pelted his chest.

  “Who does this?” he thundered, and Isobel recoiled at the scowl of rage that crossed his face. They were but tiny pebbles. How sharply could they sting? Hugh looked as if each had drawn a rivulet of blood.

  She regained her courage and tossed another handful, taking care to hit the side of the house this time.

  Hugh leaned out the window, a growl forming deep in his throat. “Who passes here?”

  Isobel extended an arm through the fence bars and flexed her fingers. It took but a second for him to see her in the light of the moon. What was that look upon his face? His anger ebbed, but she could not say he seemed happy to see her. Surprised, perhaps. She had undoubtedly startled all humors from him.

  His voice fell leaden in the night air. “You come to me as well?”

  As well?

  “What do you want?” he demanded.

  Was the man daft? Had he no fire in his soul? She did not need a voice to answer his question. She pointed a steady finger in his direction.

  He threw a glance over his shoulder, where something held his attention for a minute. “You know so very little, Francesca,” she thought she heard him say. “It will lead to your destruction.” Then he vanished from the window. She heard the guesthouse door close, and presently he stood before her.

  “You should be in bed, Isobel,” he said flatly.

  She stared up at him. She had never before seen him in the darkness, and she liked it. His eyes did not look so odd in this light. She could take in his features without getting lost in the vastness of his stare. She reached both arms toward him, but he stood just beyond her reach.

  “
Go to bed,” he said, but she shook her head.

  His voice rose with exasperation. “There can be no lesson tonight. The time is not right. I will come to you when the time is right.”

  He seemed distracted, irritated and out of sorts. It was as if whatever ailed the priory ailed her beloved as well. Isobel flattened her body against the bars. This time her fingertips grazed his hard stomach.

  He jumped back as if burned. “No, Isobel.”

  Behind him, the guesthouse door swung open, then slammed shut. Isobel’s startled gaze swiveled there. Did she have a rival? Had Hugh taken refuge in the arms of another woman? She stared as hard as she could, yet saw no one. Her questioning gaze turned back to Hugh. He, too, had turned toward the guesthouse. He took a step backward toward the fence.

  Isobel reached out and grabbed his hand.

  A delicious wave of passion swept over her as her skin touched his. Anxious for more, she tugged him toward her, clinging to his arm with the tenacity of a barnacle.

  “No!” Hugh’s eyes widened.

  But there it was. She had caught him again. Even as his words spoke of resistance, his arm reached through the bars of the fence to pull her close. His breath came in ragged spurts. His hand guided the back of her head until her face pressed against the fence as his mouth searched for hers.

  His kisses ignited a white-hot flame within her, but the iron bars hurt as they pressed against her cheekbones. Her hands instinctively flew to his shoulders. She tried to shove him away. Did he truly mean to tug her through the bars?

  He drew away from her as if drugged. His eyes glittered in the moonlight as his head lolled backward.

  “Is this what you want, then?” His hand tightened against her skull. “Is this the force that parts humans from reason, reduces them to nothing better than howling dogs? Will you so eagerly lose your self for a moment of groveling ecstasy?”

  He dropped his hand from her head. She relaxed as he lifted a finger to gently trace the curve of her lower lip. Then his guttural cry cracked the air as he clenched an iron baluster and pulled. The rod peeled away like a wildflower plucked from the damp summer earth.

  “Come to me, then!” The bar thudded to the ground. “Come to me, Isobel. Show me what it is to be human!”

  His fingers dug into her upper arm. With a mighty yank, he dragged her through the gap in the balustrade. She flew like a rag doll, landing hard against his solid chest. He caught her in his arms just before her rattled balance sent her tumbling to the ground.

  Her heart pounded as she stared at his face, searching for the smallest glimpse of romantic ardor. Instead he looked like a starving man ready to dismember the roast pheasant set before him.

  “I…will…harness…this…force!” His chest heaved between each word.

  She began to tremble. She did not understand him. She would never understand him. Worse, she would never understand why she wanted him so, why she yearned so desperately for his touch right up until the very moment he obliged her with it. Once again, her passion melted into terror in the face of this man’s hot, musky desire. The woman in her gave way to a girl who longed for the safety of her narrow convent bed.

  Hugh fell upon her, knocking them both against the ground with the force of his need.

  From the grassy knoll some yards away, Francesca tried to make sense of the scene erupting before her eyes. The girl, only moments ago an open invitation, stared at the man atop her with the wide gaze of the frightened teenager she was. How fortunate that the child saw only the physical, for Francesca could see that there was literally far more than met the eye. The energy of the spirit Asteroth interposed itself against the man called Hugh. A dull red aura emanated from the man’s skin. Claws shared space with fingernails. Flames practically leapt from Hugh’s empty eyes. A purely corporeal Francesca would have shrunk in horror, but now such a spectacle made sense to her, freed as she was from physical limitations.

  Could Asteroth not see this truth?

  “You can’t take this girl,” she called to him.

  Hugh’s head turned her way. “Leave me!”

  Francesca shook her head, trying to make him understand. “Don’t you see? Has physical form dimmed your knowledge? You’ll kill her. Your energy will be more than she can bear. Perhaps that doesn’t matter to you.”

  He stared at Isobel. The girl had grown rigid beneath him, her skin translucent in the moon’s rays. Francesca watched carefully. No love or tenderness crossed Hugh’s features, but that did not surprise her. What could evil know of love? Still, something else was at work here. One of Hugh’s eyebrows lifted; Asteroth weighed the odds. No doubt about it, this young woman had value to him. For some reason, he needed her.

  “I can master humans,” he said, hands shaking like an addict in withdrawal. “Surely I can master their hungers as well. It is my right to taste what they taste.”

  Francesca took a step backward as he once again fell upon Isobel. He was a creature gone mad. His mouth assaulted hers as his frantic hand clawed at her breast. He rocked against her with such intensity that Francesca wondered why the ground did not shake.

  Asteroth, great lord of darkness, had overlooked the fact that acquiring a physical body meant taking on physical weakness as well. Had he never once considered that his own will might be undermined by the distortion of human sensuality? Had he really considered this physical form immune from the evil perversions he himself had visited upon mankind throughout the ages? Indeed, Francesca wondered how long the body he occupied could contain such combustible energy. Already the angry red aura blotted portions of the man’s pale skin from view. This host body, strained by limitless desire, would never survive the intensity of demonic sexual release.

  Good! Asteroth’s evil could spread only with the help of human hosts. Perhaps his scheme to reach into the twenty-first century for Kat and Stephen would die along with this body.

  But he would kill Isobel in the process. Francesca could not fathom his plan for the girl, but no life was worthless enough to waste in human sacrifice.

  A cry of pain jerked her full attention back. Isobel held a hank of blond hair in her hand. Hugh, purple with rage, stared at her in disbelief. Francesca read hatred in the curl of his lip, in the tightly pulsating muscle of his neck. Still, as long as Isobel’s body touched his own, he seemed helpless against the overwhelming tide of his own desire. He reached for the girl’s shift, shoving it up until it bunched around her shoulders.

  “You will kill her,” Francesca repeated evenly.

  “Men do not die from this.” His hand kneaded Isobel’s white body. His head dropped to her breast. Francesca averted her eyes from his long red tongue.

  “You are no man,” she said.

  He lifted his head but did not turn her way. “I am greater than men,” he said, wedging Isobel’s legs open with his knee. “I will not be denied their pleasures!”

  “No.” She shook her head. “You are not greater than men. You are neither man nor spirit at this moment, Asteroth of the Crescent Horn. You will succeed only in destroying both the body you have stolen and the body that you need.”

  His gaze swung her way. His grip loosened on the girl beneath him.

  Isobel took immediate advantage of his distraction. With a burst of strength, she rammed her knee into his solar plexus, then shoved him aside. He crumpled to the earth as she scrambled to her feet. Her shift floated back into place as she stared at him, her face a mixture of anger and regret. Francesca watched her slip through the broken fence and flee into the priory courtyard.

  Hugh lay curled on the ground. There was nothing in the least otherworldly about the way he gasped for breath. The vivid red aura had vanished. Only a pale, deceptively human form met Francesca’s eyes.

  He stared up at her with reproachful blue eyes. She gasped, startled by the presence of pigment where none had existed before. But even as she watched, the blue of those eyes quickly reverted to black.

  “I can never again touch her,” h
e said, voice as empty as his eyes.

  Francesca shook her head. “No. You are helpless where she is concerned. You can’t control the lust she inspires within you.”

  He weakly beat the earth with a half-closed fist. “But I am Asteroth of the Crescent Horn!”

  He looked like a man, but Francesca knew better. He sounded like a beaten child, but there was nothing childlike in his twisted soul.

  Unless…

  Was anyone beyond redemption?

  A ripple of cold raced through her. Without a word, she turned and fled for the safety of the chapel.

  13

  STEPHEN PEERED INTO THE LARGE POT SIMMERING ON ONE OF Angel Café’s front burners. The savory aroma of beef stew teased his nostrils. He closed his eyes. A small smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. He seldom had the opportunity to cook in the restaurant these days, but some deep-seated need had compelled him into the kitchen that morning to whip up a lunch special. Outside, snow flurries scattered through the air, lightly covering the grassy strips beside the sidewalk. Inside, steam from the stew pot laced the kitchen windows and filled the room with memories of homecooked meals.

  Stephen’s black eyebrows drew together in a frown as he reached for a ladle. What the hell was he doing? Angel Café had not gained its prestigious reputation by serving rib-sticking, down-home food. He preferred guests to leave the restaurant with images of romance floating through their heads, not with thoughts of loyal dogs and dumplings. His first chance in eons to cook for the restaurant, and the best he could deliver was a dish worthy of his great-aunt Martha’s farmhouse kitchen.

  He dropped the ladle into its ceramic holder. Gravy splattered the counter.