"Laura Anne Gilman - His Essential Nature" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilman Laura Anne)

Two vampires made for a vampire. But a vampire and a humanтАж

Westin tried to shut the thought out, snapping a quick succession of frames before the buck reacted to
the clicking and bolted for deeper shelter. The last shot, of the old buck risking one glimpse over his
shoulder, hooves kicking up dried leaves and white tail flicking, gave Westin a deep satisfaction. He was
good at this. His photos of street life were in great demand, and critics referred to his тАЬuncanny ability to
ferret out the still beauty of despair, and the clarity of peace within misery.тАЭ But it was this, his nature
photography, that gave him the most pleasure. Animals were what they were, and his lens revealed only
that. He exposed no oneтАЩs secrets in these photos, laid no oneтАЩs soul bare for the world to gape at.

He had met Dani during one of his nocturnal rambles through the city, camera at the ready. It was early in
his career, when he was taking heat for not doing the тАЬcommercialтАЭ thing. Just in his mid-twenties, he
already knew what he didnтАЩt want to spend the rest of his life doing. The fact that he couldnтАЩt work under
sunlight had, thankfully, .limited his options, and his talent turned his reputation into eccentric rather than
obstinate, temperamental rather than brat. A few carefully chosen projects bombed, allowing the world
that had heralded his early work to promptly forget his very existence, leaving him to his darkened streets
and crowded tenements. Over the years he had learned the secret tricks of nighttime photography and
invented a few of his own. It helped that he could see the shadows, sense the light. His eyes were a
better meter than any mechanical contraption, and his judgement hadnтАЩt failed him in years.

Dani had been walking up Eighth Avenue, the light from a streetlamp catching her face as she stopped to
look at her map. An obvious newcomer to the city that Westin called his own. The clarity of her face in
that instant was too much to resist. HeтАЩd taken her photo. Had fallen into step beside her, offered his help
getting her to where she was going. Made advances. Felt her pulse stir a hunger not expected.

Later, over coffee, he had scolded her for accepting a strangerтАЩs invitation. She had merely smiled at him
and said that she knew he would never hurt her. Fool, he had thought then, not unkindly.

Two weeks later he had fed from the delicate veins in her wrist, bringing this undauntable woman into the
small circle of human Mends who willingly supplied him with the sustenance he needed to survive. Three
months after that, he tasted the heart-blood running in her neck, and that summer they had been married.
His father had been the only member of his family to attend the dusk ceremony, sadly outnumbered by
DaniтАЩs innumerable, exuberant family.

Leaning against the cold fencepost that marked the end of his land and the beginning of their neighborтАЩs,
Westin scanned the field in front of him, hunting for owl sign. HeтАЩd gotten a decent shot of one of those
horned hunters taking a mouse, but the angle hadnтАЩt pleased him. Hunching slightly to allow his jacket to
bunch around him for warmth, Westin allowed himself to blend .into the surroundings, his grey down
jacket and heavy cords becoming just so many more shadows.

Born to the ever-neon, ever-bustling city of Las Vegas, Westin still savored moments like this, knowing
that except for Dani back at the house, and the Fillinghams in the old farmhouse across the field, he was
alone for miles. There was no blood-sense to distract him, nothing beyond the faint pulsing of animal
blood too gamey to appeal. He loved Manhattan, but the coolness of Nature, her insistence upon
ignoring him, was too much a challenge to resist.

Hearing the smallest rustling behind and above him, he forced his body not to tense. A few minutes later
he was rewarded by the heavy flap and swoop of soft-feathered wings and the inaudible scream of a field
mouse.