Free Blood and Chrysanthemums by Nancy Baker

Jean-Pierre had not been his blood-child and never his lover. They could sip their way through the beauties of Paris without the faintest shadow of jealousy to cloud their pleasure. What they shared was nothing that mortals could touch.
    There was another vampire, he reminded himself; the cold, beautiful woman who had somehow been drawn to his clumsy necromancy in the winter of 1459. But she had died the true death two days later, victim of the stake and sword wielded by a priest with Rozokov’s betraying words in his ears. It was his bitter revenge, either the last act of a despairing mortal or the first of an inhuman monster, he had never been able to decide which. But whichever it was, it had meant that he had never known what it was supposed to be like between creator and created, between male vampire and female.
    And with Ardeth everything was different. With her, there was such a tangle of obligation and desire, love and fear, that neither his reason nor his experience could unravel it. When rationality fails, he thought ruefully, I fall back on rationalizations, just like any common mortal man.
    Sighing, Rozokov lifted his head from the telescope. There was no point in looking any more tonight. His mind was resolutely tied to the things on earth and would not see the stars. Usually, the knowledge that the light that reached his eyes was millions of years old make him feel strangely young; tonight it only made him feel alone.
    He cranked the roof of the shed closed, shut the doors behind him, and walked away. It was well past midnight and he let the first stirrings of hunger lead him through the quiet streets towards the deserted pathways that wound beside the river. In the woods beyond the town, there would be elk blood to answer his body’s need and the dark stillness that could perhaps answer his mind’s.
    Then the wind brought him the scent of blood. It was so faint no mortal could have detected it, but it exploded through his senses.
    His feet left the path and drew him through the trees, toward the light shining through the screen of pines and brush. There was a chain-link fence among the trees but the padlock on the gate cracked open under his hand before he had time to wonder why he did it. Just a glance, he promised himself. Just to make sure that no one is bleeding to death . . . 
    Through the branches, he saw two figures on the shadowy patio. The white coat cloaking one of them cued him to the neon “H” above the building. It was the town’s small hospital. That explained the blood scent, then. He started to turn away, then one of the figures spoke and the voice drew him back.
    “Don’t worry about it, Leigh. He’ll be fine.” White coat resolved into a man, middle-aged, balding. “This your first bear attack?”
    Rozokov thought of the bear he had encountered one night as he hunted. They had faced each other on the narrow path and he had sensed the heavy beat of its heart, the thick odour of wet fur, the faint snuffling of its breath. Small eyes glittered for a moment as its head lifted. Its front paws left the ground. No prey here, his mind whispered to it as the great bulk settled again. No competition either. He stepped politely off the path and after a moment the bear ambled past, watching him with wary contempt. He was not certain whether it was the will he aimed at it or its own disinterest that kept it moving but he did not cease his silent message of avoidance until he could no longer hear its tread on the trail. He would not have cared at all to meet it as a mortal.
    “Yeah. I know, it could have been worse. Once we got the bleeding stopped and I could do the stitch-up, things were fine. I’m just . . .” the woman stopped, shrugged. “I’m not used to night shift yet. My body thinks I should be asleep.”
    “You’ll settle in. Tonight was unusual. The worst things you get around here most times are broken legs from skiing in the winter and road rash from biking in the