“Dear me, no,” he said, the faintest echo of mirth in his hollow and yet deep voice. “This game, then your life. The two are interlinked. I thought you understood that, mortal.”

A cold river of sweat poured down Stafford’s back. “So why play me, then?” He hated that his voice sounded whiny, desperate, almost pleading. The vampire shrugged his broad shoulders.

“A vampire’s life is long, mortal,” he replied. “One needs to find, ah, diversions, to fill up the centuries. Chess has always been a passion of mine, and so I never miss the opportunity to play those I deem - or who deem themselves - (this with a searching look at him) the best.”

Stafford cleared his throat. “Well, how about we make that deal?”

The vampire seemed to be intently studying Stafford’s remaining knight, as if he could make it move just by thinking about it. He probably could. “What deal?” He didn’t even look up as he spoke.

“If I win, you don’t kill me,” Stafford explained. The vampire seemed to consider this, leaning even further down towards the board.

“No,” he said, and nodded at the same time.

“No?” Stafford was aghast.

“No,” repeated the vampire.

“But, but I thought vampires made deals with mortals for their souls!” Again, the voice was wheedling and coaxing, and again he hated himself for it.

“Ah,” said the vampire, leaning back for the first time in what seemed a very long time indeed. “I see where you have become confused. It’s not vampires who make those deals. No. No indeed. You’re thinking of the Devil.”

He fancied he was sitting across the table from that very personage right now. He had to ask.

“And, um, you’re not him?” It seemed a stupid question, and the vampire laughed again that dry, dusty laugh.

“Indeed,” he allowed, “there are those who have, ah, made my acquaintance who might dispute my denial, but no, I am not the Devil. And,” he looked very pointedly at Stafford, “I do not make deals.”

Deflated, desperate, the author placed his finger on top of a pawn, as if preparing to move it. In a somewhat sulky voice, which he hated even more than the other tone, he demanded “Then what’s in it for me? Why should I play you, if you’re going to kill me anyway?”

The vampire considered, still leaning back. “You get to live a few minutes longer? Don’t look to me for answers, mortal,” he suddenly snapped, black anger flaring in his red eyes. The anger quickly left them though, and he said, in what he no doubt believed to be a more comforting tone, “Look at it this way: before you die, you can take on the finest chess master this world has ever seen, or probably ever will. You can pit your wits against me, lock horns with the most accomplished proponent of the game, he who actually invented it. How many mortals get to say that?”

A plan was forming in Stafford’s mind as he listened to the vampire, and though he knew it was a desperate one, probably doomed to failure, he now put it into motion. Affecting a bored air, he shrugged.

“Fair enough I suppose. I mean, if you’re scared to make a deal, I understand. After all, maybe I’ll beat you.”

The sharp bark cut through the air like a whip, and the vampire’s eyes opened wide. “Well,” said he, “I have known mortals who were arrogant and self-assured, but your bravado will not save you. You will lose. And you will die.”

Stafford winked. He must under no circumstances appear frightened or weak; in fact, for this to work, arrogance was the one trait that might save him. And that he had in abundance.

“Want to bet?”

“Why would I wish to wager with such a puny being as you?” asked the vampire dismissively. Stafford made a show of concentrating on the board, hoping he was playing the creature at its own game. He shrugged again.

“No, I understand,” he said with mock sympathy. “There’s always the possibility you might lose. You have to bear that in mind.”

Rage smouldered in the monster’s eyes. Stafford, his head down, could not see this, but somehow he felt it, like a physical force, like a laser drilling into his forehead. “Let me be very clear on this, mortal,” said the vampire in a cold, dangerous voice. “There is no possibility that I will lose. None. The outcome is already a forgone conclusion. By the mere act of lifting the first piece, I have already won.”

Stafford nodded, forcing himself to remain calm. “Then why are you afraid to bet?” he asked. “If you’re convinced you’re going to win, what have you to lose?”

The vampire’s face expressed that strange look that is common to those who know they have been manipulated, but are unwilling to admit it. For the first time since he had laid eyes on him (how long ago had that been?) the vampire did not look so self-assured, so arrogant, so in control. Again, he couldn’t see this, but the author sensed it somehow, and it showed in the vampire’s voice when he spoke again.

“I fear nothing,” he growled. Stafford shrugged.

“Except betting with a poor mortal,” he pointed out, adding “But I don’t blame you. You surely know what a name I made for myself in the sport of chess, and, well, everyone has an off-day, don’t they? One wrong move, one miscalculation, and it could be your undoing.” He nodded. “I understand your caution. You can never be sure. I mean, never one hundred percent sure.” He stopped, transferring his gaze from the board to the vampire, and smiled. “Can you?”

The vampire fairly shook with anger. He loomed over Stafford, and for one heart-stopping moment the writer thought the creature was done with the pretence of civiity and social graces, and was going to kill him on the spot. But the shadow passed from the monster’s face, like a mist clearing to reveal a lake of ice.

As if talking through teeth gritted to avoid snapping at the presumptuous mortal, he hissed “What exactly do you propose? If you win -” Here he barked another short, bitter laugh while his eyes spat pure hatred and contempt at Stafford - “you retain your life, I presume?”

But the poor presumptuous mortal had been thinking about this, and he knew that even if he kept the bargain, which was by no means certain, how could he trust such a creature? A thought had occurred to him, which he voiced now, in the form of a question, or rather, a request for confirmation.
“Will you swear the Blood Oath?”

A deathly silence descended like a dark mist, and seemed to hang in the room for longer than was possible. For just the barest instant, Stafford fancied he caught the very slightest hint of fear - well, maybe not fear: say unease then - in those burning red eyes. After what seemed an eternity he nodded.

“I could feign ignorance,” he told Stafford, “but since you bring up the point, it is clear you are aware that it exists.” He leaned forwards, eyes sharp. “You intrigue me, Stafford: where did you gain such secret knowledge, when my people have laboured so hard for so long to keep it hidden?” The vampire looked like he would like nothing better than to tear Stafford apart right then and there. The human forced a smile.

“Never underestimate the power of good research,” he told the creature. After another pause that seemed to stretch out into hours, his adversary let out what would have been, in a human, a breath, but since vampires don’t live they don’t breathe, so he had no idea what it was, but as he expelled the - he had to call it a breath, as he had no other word to describe it, even if it was an inaccurate description - as he expelled the breath, the room grew perceptibly colder.

“Then you know,” the vampire said in what sounded almost like a resigned voice, “that it is the most sacred vow we have. Any vampire who swears the Blood Oath and breaks it, is forever shunned by every other vampire. No matter where he goes, he will never find rest, shelter or comfort. He will be a pariah; cast out, shunned, hated. Some of his kind may even hunt him. Any titles, respect or honours he has earned will be stripped from him; aye, even unto his name. For the Oathbreaker has only one name: Vashtara, the Accursed. No vampire,” he assured Stafford, “would ever dare break the Blood Oath.”

The writer nodded. It had taken a lot to track down the myth when he had been writing the tenth of his novels, and even then he had not of course truly believed it, but like certain aspects of the vampire myth, he suspected it contained a grain of truth. Now he saw that that truth consisted of somewhat more than a grain. It was time to put his plan into action.

“So, will you swear by the Blood Oath,” he asked the vampire, “to honour the bargain we make here?”

Knowing that if he refused, his intentions would become transparent, and in any case reasoning that the human’s side of the wager depended on his winning, which he would not, the vampire nodded gravely.

“I, Caesar Alexander Tiberius Maximus, High Lord of the Brotherhood of the Night, Prince of the House of The Scarlet Eye, do so swear by the Oath of Blood. Should I break the Oath, fail to keep my word, may I be outcast, deprived of all that is mine, and named hereafter only Vashtara. This I swear, this I vow, by the Ancient Dark and by the Seven Lords of Blood.”

As he spoke the last words, the fire in Stafford’s grate suddenly flared up, in exactly the same moment as forks of lighting stabbed down to the ground and blue light illuminated the windows, throwing sharp, dancing shadows on the walls, as if bearing witness to the solemn rite.

The vampire faced his opponent. His countenance, already deathly pale, seemed somehow to have lost some colour, as if something had drained the energy out of him, but this only lasted for a moment, and he was the same self-satisfied, controlled and cold creature he had been up to now.

“Speak your bargain, mortal Stafford,” he declared. “I will abide by its terms, as I have already stated.”

Stafford took a deep breath. He had to get this right. “I’m not going to ask you for my life,” he said, seeing something like surprise register on the vampire’s smooth face. “I’m going to demand yours.”