Page 51 of Almost Midnight

It was the only thing with any character in the whole fucking room.

Nick’s vision winked out, blurred, slanted, and reformed as he approached.

Briefly, it transported him someplace else.

He saw himself in a different room, on a different world.

The view of St. Maarten’s obscenely expensive and predictably unwelcoming kitchen vanished, replaced by an equally monstrous, though likely significantlylessexpensive espresso machine, in a much warmer and more friendly common space, in a very different city.

Long windows glowed with real sunlight behind the chrome and red monstrosity sat on the counter of Nick’s vision. A tall, potted, ficus tree stood in the corner just past the window. The view showed the sides of sun-kissed skyscrapers with suit-wearing people moving inside. Past the buildings, Nick saw the sparkling blue bay, and the long bridge that went all the way to Oakland, broken roughly in the middle by Yerba Buena Island.

Nick knew if he walked up to that window and looked down, he’d see a traffic-filled street, the Ferry Building, and people moving like ants on the sidewalks below.

The memory hit into him with shocking clarity.

Black’s offices.

California Street.

San Francisco.

He blinked and the view of that other world vanished.

Nick stumbled only a little.

He walked the rest of the way up to Lara’s machine, then reached for the doors of the nearest cabinet and began looking around inside of it.

He found a mug and pulled it out, plunked it on the ceramic counter.

“Can I help you?” Lara St. Maarten asked coldly.

Nick didn’t answer.

He checked the water reservoir on the back of the machine, noted it was connected to a small hose of its own, and yanked off the metal arm that held the compressed, dark, fine, espresso grounds. It was totally empty, cleaned.

He grunted. Of course it was.

St. Maarten probably had a maid who made her espressos with real espresso beans, complete with dainty leaf patterns on the real-milk foam and sprinkles of real chocolate on top. Lara probably brought the barista-maid in specifically for those mornings she deigned to use the fucking thing.

Nick couldn’t remember the last time he’d had real coffee, but he decided today would be the day. Shitty vampire taste buds or no.

He went through a row of silver, capped canisters inside the next cabinet he opened, until he found the espresso grounds. Using the special metal scooper, he filled up the portafilter and then mashed it all down with a stopper he found, until the compressed beans filled the thing up to the very brim. He notched it into the machine, and turned the thing on, weirdly pleased with himself that he remembered how to do it all.

He arranged the mug he’d pulled down so that both spigots would empty into it, then flicked the second switch, and the machine groaned and whirred into life.

Without waiting, Nick walked over to a flat, lit surface in the wall.

He was pretty sure it was the refrigerator.

It was.

He yanked open the door, found the container of milk (and yes, it was real, his nose told him), retrieved it, and brought it with him back to the monstrous coffee machine. He found a chrome container for steaming in a third cabinet, and half-filled it from the bottle of real cow’s milk that probably cost a month of his salary, if not more.

“Make yourself at home,” St. Maarten muttered, not hiding her irritation.

And okay, maybe she had a point.

This one, highly-decadent,realespresso latte would likely cost an ordinary, non-royal resident of New York roughly three thousand credits, give or take, considering how difficult it was to lay hands on real foodstuffs these days.

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