The Hourglass Door (12 page)

Like tonight. A complicated-looking machine rested on the top shelf of the cabinet. The machine was roughly square in shape, but it had three notches carved into the side so it looked a little like a giant brass
E.
Buttons and dials covered the face of the machine and each notch had been engraved with a different design: a spiral shell; a half-sun, half-moon circle; and a staff of music with five notes placed in a rising scale.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Dante asked softly beside me.

I watched his reflection in the glass. He wasn’t looking at the machine. I blushed. “What is it?” I didn’t really care; Dante had a way of really
seeing
me that sometimes made me uncomfortable.

Dante hesitated. “You’d have to ask Leo.”

“It’s amazing, whatever it is.”

Dante looked out across the crowded floor. “Are you a fan of Zero Hour?”

I shrugged. “They’re okay. Valerie really likes them, though.”

An awkward silence fell between us. “Dante . . .” I started, even though I didn’t know what I was going to say next. I wanted to ask him about his getting-to-know-you list. I wanted to ask him how he’d healed me from the white flashes I’d had. I wanted to ask him to touch me again.

“It looks like they’re about to start,” he said. “I hope you enjoy the show.” He slipped away into the crowd.

Frustrated with Dante’s seeming uncanny ability to appear and disappear at will, I joined my friends at a table with Robert and the girl who turned out to be his new girlfriend, Heather. Just then the lights went down and the show began.

The sound of a ticking clock pulsated through the speakers. Spots of different colored lights flickered across the stage like a rainbow torn from a fractured prism. From out of the swirling darkness came the sound of one, two, three, four sharp staccato beats of V’s drumsticks. The drums rumbled to life with a deep, growling bass beat. The sound crested like a rising wave before crashing down with a splash of golden cymbals and a single white beam of light split the darkness on the stage like a sword.

Zo stood at the microphone, wrenching a single note like a wailing banshee from the silver guitar in his hands, his eyes closed, his head back, his face fiercely beautiful with primal intensity. As the harsh note faded away, swallowed up by the dark, tribal heartbeat of the drums, by the endless rhythm of the ticking clock, Zo opened his dark eyes and leaned close to the microphone. He whispered four simple words.

“It’s time, my children . . .”

A spotlight flashed on Tony standing to Zo’s right. Tony pulled a high note screaming from his guitar and then danced his fingers down the frets, the sound rising, falling, diving, washing over the crowd.

Zo caressed the microphone with his hand and spoke four more words.

“Zero Hour has come!”

As the band launched into the riffs and fills of their hit single “Into the River,” I jumped to my feet, barely aware that everyone else in the club had done the same. It was instinctive. It was inevitable. The music demanded it of us, pulling at us, holding us captive to the driving rhythms of drum and bass. And over it all, Zo’s voice rose like an avenging angel.

It’s time, my children

When the waves rise high

When the waters run deep

When the clock strikes midnight

You’ll feel the mark of Zero Hour

And you’ll never be the same again

I joined my voice to the chorus swelling from the crowd, feeling the past week’s stress wash away from me. The music swept me along like the river’s current the band sang about, a fast and dangerous current, but refreshing and sustaining as well. I closed my eyes and danced to the music, feeling the possibilities spiraling around me, feeling the energy of the crowd, feeling alive like never before.

As I clapped and cheered at the end of the song, I caught sight of Dante standing behind the bar. His eyes were black pools of shadowed night. His whole body quivered with coiled tension. I watched him gasp for air as though he were drowning, his chest heaving with the strain. His eyes whipped to me across the room and I felt a flash of panic shoot through me. He
was
drowning—somehow he was being washed downriver in the midst of this crowded dance floor and I was the only one who could throw him a line, could save him from oblivion. He needed me. Now. Right now.

I took a step in his direction, confused by the intensity of my emotions but wanting to help somehow.

And then I heard Zo’s voice start another song—
“The world is older than we imagine / Time more fluid than we think”
— and then I felt Jason touch my arm and then I broke eye contact with Dante for just a second and then and then . . . and then the moment was gone. I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. I realized how thirsty I was. That must have been why I was thinking of drowning, why my thoughts were filled with images of rushing water, of crashing waves.

I grabbed Jason’s strawberry soda and drained the rest of it in a single swallow. Revived, I turned my attention back to the show, singing and clapping along with the crowd.

But in the back of my mind, I could still see the image of a shadowy figure, standing alone on a bleak and barren shore, his hand extended to me as I was swept away on a wave of light and sound.

~

“Abby? Are you asleep?” I felt Jason’s hand on my back and I abruptly jerked upright from where I had been resting my head on the bar.

“No. No, I wasn’t asleep,” I slurred, rubbing at my eyes. “What time is it?”

“Almost two,” Jason said. “The show’s been over for nearly an hour. C’mon, it’s time to go home.”

The wild, dancing, singing crowds had thinned, dispersing like fog at dawn, and the Dungeon was nearly empty. Zero Hour had finished packing up their gear, but a few knots of people were still talking to the band, unwilling to let the amazing evening come to a close. I saw Valerie talking to V, her hand on her hip in full flirt mode.

“Where’s Natalie?” I asked, looking around the room.

“She got tired of waiting for Valerie and went home with Robert.”

“Must be nice to have a brother to hitch a ride with in a pinch,” I said.

“It can come in handy. Wait here. I’ll be right back,” Jason said. He tousled my hair before heading in the direction of the bathrooms.

Pleasantly exhausted, I yawned and stretched my back, my ears ringing a little from the show. I felt remarkably alert and refreshed, considering the late hour. I saw Dante and Zo talking to the right of the stage. I found myself grinning and, seized by a sudden impulse, I hopped down from the bar stool and walked over to them.

“Hey, Dante,” I said, leaning on one of the large black boxes marked with Zero Hour’s numberless clock faces.

“Hello, Abby,” he said with that small smile I only seemed to see when he said my name.

I flicked a glance at Zo. He was taller than Dante. Older, too, but probably not by much. The frosted white tips in his dark black hair glimmered in the stage lights. A dark black chain had been tattooed around both of his wrists.

Zo caught me looking at his hands and he pushed up his sleeves so I could see them more clearly. “Do you like them?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to stare.” I narrowed my eyes. “They look like the chains in your band’s logo.”

He rotated his wrists outward, and I saw the familiar numberless clock logo marked on the inside of each wrist. The same arrows pointed to a nonexistent midnight hour. One wrist held the letters MDVI
while the other changed to MMVI.

“I’ve felt the mark of Zero Hour,” Zo said, pulling his sleeves back down, cutting a glance at Dante. “And I’ve never been the same.”

I recognized the reference to “Into the River.” Even his speaking voice managed to evoke the same angelic tones of his music. “That’s dedication,” I observed. “But which came first—the band? or the tattoo?”

A smile tugged at the corners of Zo’s full mouth.
“Il tempo e piu fluido di tu pensi.”

My eyebrows rose in happy surprise. “You’re Italian?” I looked to Dante. “So do you guys know each other?”

“We know some of the same people,” Zo said, a strange look in his eyes.

“We lived in the same neighborhood. Before. In Italy,” Dante said curtly. He clasped his hands behind his back and I saw the muscles on his arms tighten.

“Cool. It must be nice to see a familiar face, Dante. Or at least hear Italian spoken properly once in a while.”

“It certainly is nice to see your face, Abby,” he said, his voice low, and I felt a blush cross my cheeks.

“So, Abby,” Zo cut in, “did you enjoy the show?”

“Very much. I hadn’t really heard a lot of your music so it was exciting to hear it for the first time live. You’re really talented.”

“Thank you.” Zo lifted my hand and breathed a kiss along the inside of my wrist, his lips not quite touching my skin. His hand was strong, the calluses on his fingertips rough. He inhaled deeply. “Ah, yes, I recognize you. You were quite active during the show. Enthusiasm such as yours is . . . refreshing.”

“Fermati,
Lorenzo,” Dante snapped, yanking my hand away from Zo’s mouth.
“Lasciale stare.”

“Appartiene a te?”
Zo asked, an amused glint in his dark eyes.

Dante’s jaw clenched and he looked away.

I frowned, confused at the byplay. I’d have to ask Dante later what he had said. Either that or start learning Italian.

“You see, Abby,” Zo turned to me smoothly, “a good performance requires a certain amount of give and take. If the crowd is active and energetic, willing to accept what we are offering, then it makes my life so much easier.” He inclined his head in a formal bow. “So I thank you, Abby, for your acceptance of me tonight.”

Zo’s smile curved his lips but it never reached his eyes.

The euphoria I had been feeling shriveled inside me. I shivered and stepped back, bumping into a solid body behind me.

“Hey, great show, man,” Jason said. “Do you guys have any CDs left?”

Zo nodded and pointed him in Tony’s direction. “Tell him it’s on the house. A willing gift for a willing fan.”

“Thanks,” Jason said brightly. “So where are you guys headed next?”

“Oh, I think we might stay around town for a little while.” Zo’s eyes never left mine. “Take some time to reconnect with our roots before starting up another tour.”

“Cool. Maybe we’ll see you around, then,” Jason said.

Dante made a small, inarticulate noise deep in his throat.

I stumbled after Jason, my exhaustion finally catching up to me. As Jason slipped the CD into his jacket pocket, as he helped me into my coat, as Valerie found her keys, as we finally left the Dungeon, I was acutely conscious of Zo’s eyes on me, watching my every move, and his feral smile remained sharp in my memory, even after I had fallen asleep.

Chapter

8

Zo’s smile stayed with me over the next few days. I saw it in the curve of the moon at night, in the teeth of Jason’s circular saw blade that he used in the shop garage. At those times I would hear again the whisper of his angelic voice,
Thank you, Abby, for your acceptance of me,
and feel again the shiver along the inside of my wrist where he’d almost kissed me.

More than once I thought about talking to Dante about it, but every time someone mentioned Zo or Zero Hour around him, his face closed and his eyes grew dark. I didn’t dare bring it up. Plus, I hadn’t had a spare moment alone with Dante since he’d given me the box of chocolates. I would see him at school, and we talked every day after rehearsal, but he was careful never to be alone with me. I sometimes wondered if I’d made a mistake, if maybe he wasn’t interested in me after all, but then I’d see that small smile cross his lips when he said my name and a certain spark in his eyes as they changed from gray to blue when I walked past him and the countless almost-times he reached out his hand for mine before pulling back, tugging on the edge of his gloves instead.

No, I didn’t think I was mistaken.

I stayed busy with rehearsals, school, and my friends. There was some general excitement about a week later when someone broke into the Special Collection section at the university library and stole some documents. The police weren’t saying exactly what was stolen or if they had any suspects, and the story was quickly relegated to “old news.”

Likewise, Zo’s smile was relegated to the back of my mind, and before I knew it, two weeks had passed in a blink and suddenly it was the end of January.

~

“Abby, Jason’s here.” Mom knocked three times before opening the door. “He’s in the front room.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, checking my reflection before running a brush through my hair one last time. “Would you tell him I’ll be right down?”