Page 82 of Almost Midnight

The room fell silent after she spoke.

Nick found himself walking faster, in spite of himself, his jaw now clenched as he made his way to the lit opening at the end of the stone corridor.

By the time he reached the entrance to the other room, he was mostly just annoyed.

He hadn’t even looked inside really, when he began to speak.

“I’m notgrumpy,”he growled, using his best old-man-vampire voice. “Do I think everyone I give a damn about in thisgaos-damned dimension collectively lost theirgaos-damned minds? Yes. Do I wonder if you all might be suffering from head injuries? Probably. I’m out of commission for a few hours, and, what? You all got together and decided to commit mass suicide for no fucking reason? Can’t imagine why that might make megrumpy,squirt––”

As the last word left his mouth, Nick looked around the room for real…

…and instantly fell silent.

* * *

The room helda lot more people than he’d expected.

He found himself looking around at a wide, underground space, probably an old kitchen and dining room for the monks, or priests, or whoever originally built this place and lived and prayed and slept and ate here.

The faces he’d thought he would see in the room turned to stare at him in the doorway, but a number hehadn’texpected also looked over at where he stood under the stone arch.

The room wasn’t brightly lit, but it was illuminated enough that even a human could have made out all their individual features. Lamps sat on stone counters and in the center of wooden tables, reminding Nick of the shockingly vivid dreams he’d been having.

Some of the people sitting there had recently-cleaned plates and bowls sitting in front of them on the thick wooden tables. Those tables looked ancient, or at least made of ancient materials, and also reminded Nick of his dreams.

The kitchen looked about three hundred years old.

Maybe even older, he thought sourly, glancing to his left and seeing the tall stone fireplace with its soot-stained, white-washed walls and clay tile hearth. A kettle hung over hot coals, steam drifting lazily from the spout from where it hung on a hinged hook. It was so similar to things he’d seen in his dreams, Nick could only stare at it for a few seconds.

His eyes swiveled back to all of those faces.

He stared around at the people sitting on chairs and benches around the two long tables that took up most of the center of the room.

Morley was there, holding a hand-thrown, clay mug filled with what smelled like coffee, but definitely synthetic coffee, not the real stuff. Next to him sat Kit, with Malek on her other side. Tai sat next to Wynter, a little further down on Morley’s other side. She also held a clay mug filled with synthetic coffee.

It occurred to Nick that the smells that filled his nose were those of breakfast, not dinner. They were bacon and synthetic grain cereals and artificial eggs and toast.

It wasn’t the middle of the night, like he’d thought when he woke up.

It was morning.

Finally, his eyes swiveled to the second table.

Six other beings sat around that one.

Only one had a plate on the table in front of them, which had been scraped clean of artificial eggs and toast. That same individual held the only mug at that table, too, which also smelled of coffee. None of the beings sitting in a ring around him had mugs in their hands, and they were dressed distinctly differently than Nick’s family and friends.

Nick’s eyes met Brick’s eyes and features first.

The tall vampire winked at him, but his crystal eyes didn’t change focus.

A faint smile tugged at Brick’s full lips, and what might have been an “I-told-you-so” glint shone from his cynically amused eyes. His long auburn hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he wore a strangely militaristic outfit, one fitted with knives on both sides, with two sword handles visible behind his back in the traditional cross-scabbard they’d all worn during the war. Armored plating covered his legs, arms, torso, abdomen.

The armor was all deep black when viewed straight on, but glinted with a faint, iridescent, sheen when it caught the firelight.

That sheen distinctly hinted at organic components, and likely a lot of them.

Which probably explained why the armor appeared so lightweight, and so precise and form-fitting. If the sword handles hadn’t been visible, and all the knives, it barely would’ve been noticeable as combat gear at all.

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