The Violet Hour: A Metaphysical Love Story

The Violet Hour

By Joy Zurzolo

Chapter 1: Jasmine

Chapter 2: Luca

Chapter 3: Phisto

Chapter 4: Jasmine

Chapter 5: Phisto

Chapter 6: Jasmine

Chapter 7: Phisto

Chapter 8: Jasmine

Chapter 9: Luca

Chapter 10: Phisto

Chapter 11: Luca

Chapter 12: Phisto

Chapter 13: Jasmine

Chapter 14: Phisto

Chapter 15: Luca

Chapter 16: Santa

Chapter 17: Phisto

Chapter 18: Jasmine

Chapter 19: Luca

Chapter 20: Phisto

Chapter 21: Luca

Chapter 22: Jasmine

Chapter 23: Luca

Chapter 24: Jasmine

Chapter 25: Luca

Chapter 26: Santa

Chapter 27: Phisto

Chapter 28: Jasmine

Chapter 29: Luca

Chapter 30: Phisto

Chapter 31: Luca

Chapter 32: Phisto

Chapter 33: Jasmine

Chapter 34: Phisto

Chapter 35: Luca

Chapter 36: Jasmine

Chapter 37: Phisto

Chapter 38: Jasmine

Chapter 39: Phisto

Chapter 40: Jasmine

Chapter 41: Luca

Chapter 42: Jasmine

Chapter 43: Phisto

Chapter 44: Luca

Chapter 45: Phisto

Chapter 46: Jasmine

Chapter 47: Phisto

Chapter 48: Jasmine

Chapter 49: Luca

Chapter 50: Jasmine

Chapter 51: Phisto

Chapter 52: Luca

Chapter 53: Santa

Chapter 54: Phisto

Chapter 55: Luca

Chapter 56: Jasmine

Chapter 57: Luca

Chapter 58: Phisto

Chapter 59: Jasmine

Chapter 60: Luca

Chapter 61: Phisto

Chapter 62: Jasmine

Chapter 63: Santa

Chapter 64: Luca

Chapter 65: Jasmine

Chapter 66: Luca

Chapter 67: Jasmine

Chapter 68: Luca

Chapter 69: Jasmine

Chapter 70: Luca

Chapter 71: Phisto

Chapter 72: Jasmine

Chapter 73: Luca

Chapter 74: Jasmine

Epilogue: Jasmine

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Jasmine

When I awaken this summer morning in Venice, I have no premonition that I will be fighting for my life before tomorrow’s dawn; or that my mentor and would-be lover, plans to kill me. Memories of the last eight pain-filled years, like a pale puckered scar, remind me that I have been able to heal, through music and love. Music has always saved me, I think.

Several hours later, before the violet dawn flushes a new day, I walk into the American Opera Center theater theatre, in New York, to meet my lover, but really, the stage has been set for my death.

I rush into the theater, only thinking about his arms and his kiss. I halt briefly, noting that hundreds of candles have been lit and the stage set for Violetta’s death scene in La Traviata.

I call to my lover, and my voice echoes in the acoustical theater then fades into silence. I have one thought, and that is to run, but despite my instincts, I still hope that my beloved waits for me there, and my legs move slowly towards the exit. Then his arms encircle my waist and his breath, heavy with the rich scent of the fine vintage 1787 Bordeaux that we shared in better times, you could say, tickles my ear. Immediately I realize that something has gone desperately wrong.

Ah, but you were expecting the other one. Sorry to disappoint, my dear. But you will see that I am the better choice. I offer the better life.

You just startled me, I choke as my throat closes with fear. Come, are you chastising me for missing a rehearsal? Did I forget something? I chide him lightly, even though the words stick in my throat and my mouth is dry.

Nothing has been forgotten. This is the most important night of your life. Tonight, you will truly be immortal. I offer you this, and fame. What girl has had such an offer?

He turns me so that I gaze into his familiar face. I recognize the dark stubble that ripples along his angular jaw and a wave of dark chocolate hair that falls into his cobalt eyes, which are now steely.

I’ve been traveling all day, I say. It’s wonderful to see you, really. Can’t we continue this tomorrow?"

Tomorrow is a day for beginnings, but tonight is for endings. Say goodbye to the mediocrity that shadows every step that humans take. Au revoir to servitude, and fear and folly. Tonight, you will become the queen of your life, and mine. Together we will rule the operatic stages of the world. Just a brief time of pain, and an eternity of song and power will follow. He touches his cold lips to mine, and I feel ice bubbles run throughout my body.

Come, my dear. Have a drink with me. There is no need to hurry. I have wanted to taste you since I first smelled your blood. It is quite magnificent, you know, like your voice.

He leads me to the stage and I sink onto Violetta’s deathbed, praying that it will not be mine.

I offer a toast, to our new union, he says. We will reign forever, Tseylulu.

I flinch at his pet name for me, which translates as ‘I kiss you.’ He often shouted that during our rehearsals over the past year, but now his vocal caress pounds in my ears, like a Lady Gaga recording that is poorly synced. I am determined to hold onto another melody, one that was written for me.

I sought him whom my soul loveth: I held him and I would not let him go. The phrase from the Bible’s Song of Solomon races through my mind. So, I am to be this monster’s immortal bride or destroy the other man who has become my soul. This totally bites, I think, and then choke back hysterical laughter.

I don’t answer, and my silence enrages him. I feel a rush of wind flying past me, but it is I who fly across the stage when the demon hurls me. My body feels mangled, and the harsh stage floor thuds against my head before I lose consciousness. The last thing I hear is my beloved’s music. It comes to me as through a mist. I hold onto that. I will take that to my death. I think of the aria that my love wrote for me, Questo Il Mio Momento Finale—the aria that I was cast to sing in the New York premier of his opera, on this same stage—while another stabbing pain rocks my body. And so I will not die alone, or in vain. My love and his music will survive. And the world will be a better place for that…

Chapter Two

Luca

I am a deeply impassioned man who has lived like a monk for the past three hundred years. I have done so through necessity, not desire. Perhaps desire as well, for I had lived with my love five hundred years ago, in Florence, at the height of the Italian Renaissance. It was a magical time to live and love. Since her premature death at the height of the Cultural Revolution during the Bonfire of Vanities, I have sought Fiora in every melody, every smile, every eye.

There was always a moment when I first met a woman, when I sought that recognition in her eyes, and in her sound. I have been gifted with many talents. One was that I was able to hear people’s sound vibrations as music, and through this I have been able to understand their thoughts. It has given me an advantage that I have needed living in this strange world, which seemed to become increasingly peculiar with each successive year.

I have been feverish with anticipation since I first heard Jasmine Dee’s sound, the startling new vocal talent at the American Opera Center. There were other voices, but hers spoke to me in such a way that I imagined Fiora had returned to me. Composing became difficult and I found myself often staring into the past in the middle of conversations, rehearsals, and less frequently, social engagements. Less frequently because I have become a solitary man and have learned to live with my memories and my discipline so that I would not harm humans.

Truthfully I heard her music long before she began her studies at the American Opera Center in New York, before I saw her hazel eyes that reminded me of cool mountain lakes. But when she finally came to New York, my head reverberated with her sound. I became empowered with its liquid brilliance. I wasn’t able to concentrate on my composing. Couldn’t rest. The burning hunger that had long been dormant returned to torment me and hammered in my brain like millions of fiery pistons. My only focus was to get close to Jasmine’s sound, and to Jasmine. I wanted to inhale her heady scent and to feel it penetrate my being, which had seemed lifeless until then.

I hadn’t approached her yet because I was afraid that I’d lose my practiced control. But my restraint was useless because I soon heard her sound everywhere. Even though I intensified my daily meditations, I found myself lingering outside her practice room with my head on the wall, just beyond the door so that she couldn’t see my powerful body battling for restraint.

I began to think that it was time to leave New York and to go back to the monks who had trained me so many years ago, eons it seemed. They taught me to live on the spiritual energy of breath, or prana. Since I’d lost my beloved wife, Fiora, and I was no longer human, music became my only passion, my life. So I hadn’t anticipated the way that Jasmine’s scent, how she smiled, sang, and looked had tempted and awakened me, though I should have. I should have remembered that temptation fed on the complacent soul. I had become so confident that I’d conquered my true nature that I almost forgot that I was a Vampayre. Almost.

Vampayres fed on human breath and sucked their victims’ oxygen until they lay drained and dead. I vowed to destroy my life as an eminent composer before I could get close enough to harm Jasmine or expose her to my particular passion for human breath. I paused to consider my nature. After all, as a Vampayre, I had exceptional gifts. We were essentially spiritual creatures, half angel and half man. Like all souls, we Vampayres struggled with free will, but we also possessed extraordinary abilities to charm humans, which challenged their free will. We had unnatural physical beauty and epic sexual magnetism. Vampayres were often seduced by music and usually had other worldly musical talents. I’ve explained my ability to hear and interpret humans’ sound vibrations. My abilities extended to animals and other creatures, like Phisto.

Let me finish, for our gifts are many. Vampayres also have full, sensual lips and excel at kissing. Kissing was the more compassionate way that we could kill our victims. Expertly and gently at first, we would caress their lips with ours and penetrate their mouths until we suffocated them by sucking all of their breath. Their deaths were pleasant though, for we filled their heads with beautiful music that had accompanied them through their lives. We lured and consoled them with their individual sound vibration, which lulled them into rapturous, hypnotic states. They went peacefully, blissfully even, towards death’s caress.

Beware, though, we were also vicious when betrayed and would do anything, anything, to protect our loved ones. And we Vampayres were also capable of killing in more painful and far less gentle ways.

But our eyes, our eyes were extraordinary. They reflected the level of our spiritual development and changed with our growth. During the past five hundred years my eyes had turned a violet color that deepened or lightened with my state of spiritual attunement. I had advanced tremendously, for this color was associated with one of the highest levels of spiritual attainment. My eye color also indicated the psychic power of attunement with self as well as intuitive, visionary, futuristic, idealistic, artistic and magical gifts.

Are you feeling well, Luca? I turned to see my graduate assistant, Timothy. He held the score for my new opera, which was scheduled to premiere the following August, in one year.

We’re scheduled to rehearse in the theater. I was just on my way, Tim said, and he looked concerned until he realized that I had been listening to Jasmine practice. His mouth then broke into a ridiculously simple human grin. Oh yes, everyone is talking about her. What a sound.

I forced myself to smile in complicity. I gathered my strength during those few moments before I finally met her.

Yes, I was thinking of asking her to audition for my opera, but it hardly seems necessary, I continued as I regained my composure.

She’d be marvelous in the role. Why don’t I ask her to come in and sing for us this week? I have your schedule, Tim suggested.

I’m not sure. I may have to go out of town for a few days. I hated the subterfuge, but I couldn’t tell him what I had been thinking. Just then the door opened and Jasmine stood before me. Her vivid cheekbones were flushed from having sung well, and her hazel eyes looked golden as if smoldering volcanic embers burned there. I noticed that she studied me from those hypnotic, deeply set eyes, and time dissolved. Jasmine’s sensual lips parted as if to speak, and I felt my nails biting into the skin on the inside of my palms. My tongue seemed to swell like that of someone being strangled, so Tim filled the awkward silence.

I’m sorry if we’ve disturbed you, Jasmine. We were just admiring your singing, Tim said good-naturedly.

I’ll never get tired of hearing that. You’re Luca, she said and extended her slender hand to take mine, which already reached for hers.

Jasmine’s skin glistened like an opalescent pearl, and my eyes followed the delicate, almost teal veins that looked like colored vines tracing patterns along her slender arms.

You’re one of my idols. I’ve longed to sing your music, Jasmine said, mercifully ignorant of the conflict that was shredding my composure.

Just then Phisto turned the corner, and I damned myself again that afternoon for not having paid attention to his thoughts. I realized then that Phisto had done everything in his power to delay our meeting and I had fallen in line with his plans perfectly. I had left Jasmine vulnerable and open to Phisto’s powerful charms during her first year of studies while I had avoided her. Phisto watched her possessively. His lips parted briefly, as though he were about to sip his damned wine or worse. I was revolted when I considered how Phisto would want to manipulate Jasmine’s talent for his advantage. I cursed my complacency again that day. For I alone knew what he was, and I understood that Phisto, a Vampire, and I, could no longer coexist. I heard my laughter slice the moment and then realized that Jasmine and Tim watched me as if I were a madman. Phisto, however, kept his distance and listened to our exchange from where he stood, pretending to consult his iPhone.

Jasmine, you’re enchanting, I said, barely managing to squeeze sound through my raw throat. Tim was encouraged by the fact that I hadn’t in fact lost my faculties and rushed in.

We would like to invite you to audition for Luca’s new opera. We’re casting in the next few weeks, Tim said.

I saw the triumphant smile that twisted Phisto’s face. I then knew that he had waited for this moment—waited and known that I, too, would find Jasmine irresistible. He and I had that in common.

I knew his weaknesses as intimately as my own, and he mine. I should have prevented his advantage. I should have befriended her before he had the chance to claim Jasmine as his new vocal protégé, before he had the chance to penetrate her artistry and to convince her that her sound was now due to his skill and not hers alone.

Of course my role as a composer had put me in an awkward position. As the resident conductor for the American Opera Center, Phisto naturally had the opportunity to work with her first. I would only have had the chance to work with her if she were cast to sing one of my pieces. I noticed how she looked at Phisto with unbridled admiration and, I thought, with a touch of reverence.

So this was to be our final battle, after all this time. Our supernatural powers and prestige had grown so that only one of us could reign as the dominant musical force in Juilliard and beyond. And though our feud had started long ago, it was time that it finished. So this child, really, Jasmine, was to be the prize that would consummate our victory. My resolve flamed through my body and I unclenched my fists. So much more was at stake.

Tim will give you a copy of the aria that I’d like you to sing, I said.

My voice resonated in the hall even as I noticed her eyes flicker in response to my dark baritone. I took her hand and bought it to my lips, defying Phisto, who remained in the shadows, to stop me. But God knew it cost me. A surge of desire electrified my cells, but I quelled that. I watched Phisto’s cobalt eyes as he calculated the risk—as he rearranged the players on the chessboard that he was determined to control. Phisto wasn’t satisfied with his fame and prestige at the AOC and other major opera houses; he wanted to extend his sphere of influence. I was an impediment to his plans, and he had other reasons for hating me. You could say that I had created him.

I, I’m honored, Jasmine said as a faint blush stained her cheekbones. She struggled for composure, and I understood that she wanted to appear professional. I’m speechless, she added with disarming humility.

And I felt what had been my heart lurch as it responded to her honesty, like a sensation of brutal tenderness. I had thought myself above human love. I had other concerns, other battles. But maybe I was as susceptible as any human. I realized that my mission was to be there, to save her, as I couldn’t save her during our last life together. For I was certain then that I recognized who Jasmine was and why I’d been obsessed with her sound—why I loved her so deeply. And I felt gratitude that I had another chance to keep Jasmine alive. Saving one person was like saving the world, for the universe existed in the one as the one existed in the whole.

I heard traces of the music that flitted through her mind. I knew her thoughts and her sound, for I had loved her for the past five hundred years. I recognized my beloved late wife, Fiora, in Jasmine. Even though Jasmine couldn’t recognize me, for she wasn’t immortal and didn’t possess my gifts, I still hoped that she possessed enough awareness and spirituality to remember me on some level.

Once again I tuned into Jasmine’s sound and realized that my music was in her head. She must have listened to my rehearsals. She had been drawn to me with equal force, so a part of her did recognize me. God help us both, I prayed. Phisto’s eyes slithered over us, and I knew that even though he couldn’t read our thoughts, he was adept at intuiting human emotions and motivations. I silently acknowledged that the battle had begun and vowed that I would be the victor.

Phisto came forward and flung his arm around her sculpted shoulders. I couldn’t tolerate his touch against her skin. But I had to bide my time and listen more carefully to his thoughts before I determined my course of action. Stupidly I had learned to tune him out long ago. His sinuous and discordant harmonies were intrusive to my work. But I could no longer afford the luxury of ignoring him. Phisto and I had both been recruited by the AOC during the last five years, and we recognized the enormous potential that awaited us each in such a venue, just steps from the Metropolitan Opera House. The AOC often collaborated with the Met. The new opera that I was casting was scheduled to open at the AOC but would also debut at the Met during its next season.

Phisto’s lips were pale. He was probably hungry, and that filled me with dread.

Shall I call you, Tim, to schedule the audition? Jasmine asked before Phisto could maneuver her around the corner.

I’ll contact you with a time, I said, and watched Phisto’s eyes twist into a jagged cobalt line. I look forward to hearing you with great anticipation, I added as I easily covered the distance that separated us and took her soft hand one more time.

Tim will arrange for you to pick up the aria that I’d like to you to sing, so that you have time to prepare.

I felt her hand relax in my much larger one. It seemed ironic that I should have such unnatural physical strength and that I could only touch her as one would a child or blossom. I felt drained as I released her hand. I held Phisto’s eyes and he held mine. Much was at risk. More than I even then imagined.

I slipped into the practice room that Jasmine had just left. I covered my face in gratitude and despair and slowly inhaled the lingering scent of her sound.

Chapter Three

Phisto

I had no patience for weakness. The strong inherit the earth and all of her delights. And though Luca was not weak, he was weakened where Jasmine was concerned. He hadn’t shed his human emotions as I had. Even when I walked the earth as a man and slaughtered men in battle, I’d conquered my human frailties. I’d learned well at my mother’s icy tit that noblemen were bred for strength and that they used it to increase their power and wealth. She was a cold bitch, my mother, but I appreciated her maternal lessons each time I slammed my sword into a man’s rib cage and walked away.

I decided that I would walk away from this tedious conflict that started five hundred years ago with Luca. I was bored with his unswerving moral compass and rigid vigilance as he watched my every move. I wanted Jasmine and I realized that day, as I watched them meet, that he wanted her as well. So she was not only a prize but a weapon that I would use to destroy Luca, finally.

I laughed violently and winds shook the Juilliard building. I’d learned to control much during my time, and the weather was a stunning achievement. Despite my plans to separate them, they’d felt a connection. I would use that to my advantage.

You could say that it was perhaps the answer to my struggle for the last five hundred years. I wanted to destroy Luca, for he had once destroyed me. He was responsible for the man, or the Vampire, that I’d become. And even though Luca’s attraction to Jasmine would enable me to destroy him, I was enraged when he touched her. His hands on her body made me want to pierce his rib cage with my sword. I couldn’t tolerate the thought that he would have to spend time with her if I wanted to accomplish my goal—to destroy him.

I clenched my jaw when I saw how she responded to his touch. It would be cool at first, and then it would leave a burning trail. Then I noticed that desire was in her eyes. The knowledge that she wanted him twisted like knives, but she would have no clue.

I was hungry. I needed more sustenance for our final battle. I would dine well that night, I thought, and laughed, for my plan delighted me. You see, a far different god had formed my character. But that was a story for another time.

I knew that Jasmine desired me even as she appealed to my vanity, for she wanted me to help her to win the role. My career escalated each time that I cultivated a promising singer, and I had chosen well last year when I selected Jasmine amongst the new crop of AOC talent.

We met for the first time when she auditioned for me a year ago. I was taken with the color of her eyes, for I had lingered onstage to greet her before I took my seat in the back of the theater. Her eyes had warmth, like a blade that had just been whet with a man’s blood. They reminded me of a pair of rose gold earrings that I had bought from a local merchant for Erzsebet as a wedding gift.

I was jaded and easily bored. Yet the pulsing beauty of Jasmine’s voice and her vocal timbre excited me. Even her scent was lyrical and seductive. That intensified my enjoyment of her performance, for I inhaled her scent deeply while she sang, even though I was sitting in the back of the theater. Vampires had supernaturally heightened senses and other alluring and more deadly gifts. Still I desired Jasmine not in the abstract and violent way that usually satisfied me but with an intensity that actually felt as though her sound pumped through my veins. For me, it was life sustaining, like blood.

I’ve heard enough, I said abruptly that first day. I am interested to work with you. We will accomplish much together. I saw the tint of blood as it rushed to her face, but her voice remained calm and controlled even as I feared that I would lose my composure, for I wanted to taste her seductive blood above all else.

That would be my honor, maestro, she answered

Please to call me Phisto. We will spend much time together working, yes?

Yes, she said, and an inviting smile lit her face. It mesmerized me. So young and fresh she was, and I wanted that youth and that promise. She was so unlike the ambitious singers, musicians and composers who continually threw themselves at me. All whores, I thought and wanted to spit. Normally I was attracted to internal shadows and savored the night, but I had begun to feel differently. I wanted another kind of challenge and companion. My 41 years weighed upon me, though I was much older than that. Much.

Come, join me for a drink, we will talk. She seemed to float down the stairs to me, and I relished her scent like the heady Rothschild Bordeaux I favored.

Jasmine took my hand, and I felt her warmth as it hummed through her slender, shapely body. I brushed her honey-colored hair from her neck and stared at her throat’s virginal