Whirling, he saw a middle-aged woman on her arse on the ground. She had obviously walked into him and fallen. He bent to help her up, but she ignored his proffered hand, levering herself up with some difficulty, and looking around in consternation as if trying to work out what had happened, what she had hit, how she had fallen.

Oh Christ! He thought. Perhaps she’s blind! That would explain how she didn’t see me.

Well, that and the fog was getting thicker. But that must be it, he decided, and that would also solve the mystery of why she refused to be helped up: she couldn’t see his outstretched hand.

But then, just as he was beginning to feel better about himself, just as he was ready to admit that it was merely a combination of the weather, the time of night, and the general rudeness of people that had made three encounters with him turn out as if he wasn't there, he noticed that the woman was bending to pick up her bag, which had become separated from her as she fell and disgorged its contents on the hard, cold ground.

An assortment of items had fallen out of it, and she had picked up a small hairbrush, some letters, a pencil, a cigarette lighter with something engraved on it, a tiny nail scissors and two packets of peppermint sweets. All of these had been returned to the bag with speed, as if she feared someone might come along and step on them, or rob them, or her, or both. She either wasn’t blind or she had adapted to her disability incredibly well.

Only one item remained on the ground, and as she reached for it, he saw it was a book.

He knew it well. Glaring at him with a sullen expression from the cover was a face he knew well, his arms around the neck of a nubile teenager, red stylised blood pouring down her naked neck and onto her naked breasts. The eyes that looked over the young woman’s shoulders, glowing red and surrounded by a green mist, were those of his best-known character, Erasmus Vintaglia.

It was the cover of Rhapsody in Red, his ninth novel in the Gray Hunter series.

“I guess it’s your lucky day, ma’am!” A wide grin split his face as the woman turned around, having picked up the book, and faced him. “Your eyes are not deceiving you,” he assured her, his voice thick and oily, as he always made it when he spoke to fans. “It’s me, Maurice Stafford, in the flesh! How do you do?”

He had met many thousands of his fans in his time; most, it’s true, at book signings and conventions, but their reactions could usually be divided into three categories: those who screamed and gushed how much they loved his work (mostly younger women, and he had no problem with that, especially when they jumped up and down and hugged him; he didn’t like being hugged normally, but happily made exceptions for anything over a 32C), those who were calmer and tried to engage his interest in their own work - they were “a writer, too”, and had of course been inspired by his work (most of these he put off by explaining that sadly his contract forbade him from sponsoring any new writers - which it did not) - but one or two he had taken, either out of curiosity or because the tits were particularly big. He loved his tits, did Stafford.

Of those, ninety percent was garbage, a further eight percent basically ripped him off in one way or another, which left him with a small handful of work that showed some promise. If it showed enough promise, he robbed it, changing the details just enough to be able to avoid any accusations, and anyway, with his top lawyers on his side, nobody dared take him on in any court in the land, and the ones who basically fainted, overcome by meeting their hero in person.

But to his amazement, this woman did not exhibit any of these characteristics, and fit into none of the three categories. She, in fact, ignored him, walking almost into him, before he, worried about knocking her down again - this time face to face, where he could possibly be looking at a civil case for injuries caused (perhaps that was her game in the first place) - stepped aside, and she walked off into the fog.

“What the -?” Words failed him, and as a writer, that happened but seldom. And as a writer, he soon found the words and thrust them after her, where the uncaring fog ate them like some amorphous monster looking for its next meal, then, as if that monster had had an attack of indigestion, spat a fragment of its meal back out, and it took the form of a man, walking slowly and purposefully towards Stafford.

He noted the blue uniform, and sighed in relief.

“At last!” he swore, as the cop drew up in front of him. “About time! I pushed that alarm - (how long ago now was it? Standing in this fog, undergoing the very strange experience of being ignored by everyone he had met, he seemed to have lost track of time. In fact, a cold chill ran down his spine as he admitted that he was beginning to even feel detached from reality itself) ages ago! I suppose,” he allowed, calming somewhat now that the police had finally arrived, “it’s the fog, isn’t it? Roads dangerous, got to be careful? Well, you’re here now, so he’s in here.”

He made back towards his door (almost entirely hidden now by the thick banks of mist; he barely found his way back) saying over his shoulder “There a black-and-white on the way, yeah? They sent you on to let me know they were coming?”

Silence greeted him.

He turned, looked back. The fog obscured everything now, and a very real sense of fear was beginning to creep over him, as if the haze which rolled across the roads and the streets outside his Seventh Avenue home, and which had advanced to his very doorstep, was threatening to enter his body. He felt like it wanted to invade him, pervade him, take him over, choke him. The cop was nowhere to be seen. He shouted into the mist, but no answer came back.

He couldn’t even hear footsteps.

He couldn’t hear anything.

“What the hell?” he breathed, and grabbed the frame of his door like a man drowning who spots a piece of driftwood floating by, and grabs hold of it, recognising it to be the only thing that can save him. Staggering, his heart beating fast, he almost fell across the threshold, feeling as if he had been in outer space, and had just made it back to the airlock before his oxygen had run out. He leaned, gasping, against the wall, probably only for seconds, but it felt like hours, until a deep, rich voice enquired without the slightest inflection or hint of concern, belying the words “Are you all right, Mister Stafford? You seem to have been gone for some time.”

“What - what time - how long - what -?” Forestalling his half questions, and divining their gist, the vampire remarked

“I believe a total of three hours, six minutes has elapsed since you excused yourself. I hope,” said the vampire, turning in his chair and betraying not so much a smile as a flash of white, sharp teeth, “you have worked out your next move, yes?”

Disbelieving, Stafford glanced at the clock on the wall, then down at his watch. The one said 4:35 AM, the other 1:29 AM. There was a clear disparity between the two timepieces of, as the vampire had said, three hours and six minutes. But - but that wasn’t possible, he told himself. Sure, he had lost track of time out there; the thick fog had confused his senses, and everyone refusing to even acknowledge his existence muddled that further, and his brain must have … three hours? How could that be? And yet, the clock in his study, which he knew to be accurate and whose batteries he had only changed last week, was never wrong. His watch was also reliable to a fault; God knows he had paid enough for it. Swiss craftsmanship at its finest. Neither could be wrong.

And yet, one of them had to be.

Unless…

Unless the vampire was speaking the truth, and somehow he had passed over three hours out there in the fog. He shivered as he remembered how, just after he had met the cop (just now?) and had not been recognised, even acknowledged, he had had the feeling that reality itself was slipping away, and the panic that had gripped him as he lurched towards the doorway, as if it was an escape from … from what?

Something was very clear though: things were not as they should be. Why had nobody spoken to him, marked his presence, completely ignored him? Sure, there was the fog, and the dark, and this was New York, but if you knock someone’s headphones off the least you can expect is an exclamation and a demand for an explanation, at worst you might get your head kicked in. But to be treated as though you’re not there, as if you were ….

Invisible?

“If you were waiting out there in the hopes of greeting the officers of the law you alerted,” the vampire told him without a trace of smugness, “you should know that you wasted your time. They will not cross this threshold tonight.”

Anger rose in him, and in a way he was glad of it. This was something he could deal with, something he could understand, something that wasn’t bloody supernatural or weird. “You disabled the alarm?”

“No, Mister Stafford,” the vampire told him, turning his back on him as he spoke, returning his attention to the chessboard. “If I disabled anything, I suppose you might say I disabled you.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in, then, regaining his strength, and with it a rising indignation, he snapped “Excuse me?”

“Oh it’s nothing really,” the vampire told him airily, not deigning to turn around. “A small talent I acquired a very long time ago. It makes you - well now, let me think how I can say this.” He seemed, from the set of his shoulders, to be ruminating on how best to explain himself, while his gaze appeared to remain riveted on the remaining chess pieces. Finally, he turned around.

Having not seen him for - if the vampire was to be believed - over three hours now, Stafford had forgotten how penetrating those eyes were, how cold their gaze, how they drew you towards and into them, like a fish struggling on a line …

He shook his head, like a woman shaking out a dusty rug, and his thoughts cleared somewhat.

“For a short time only,” the vampire advised him, “I have - well, let’s say I’ve cut you out of time. Removed you from the present. Hidden you, perhaps, might be a better way of looking at it.” He sighed, reading the incomprehension in the writer’s eyes.

“It’s hard, trying to explain what is to my people a simple process, to such unimaginative beings as yourselves. Very well: think of it this way. Let’s say that - oh I hate using heavy-handed metaphors, but I can only use the tools that are to hand - I have taken a magic scissors, and with that scissors cut you out of the world. You’re not dead, but you’re sort of not alive either. I suppose it would be best to describe your current situation as, you are held in abeyance.”

“Abeyance?”

“Yes. I’m sure you’re familiar with the term. You have been - oh, what is that quaint expression you mortals use, with reference to those communication devices you use: telephones, I think you call them?”

“Tele-?”

The vampire ignored him, snapping his fingers. “On hold!” He exclaimed triumphantly. “Yes, that’s it: on hold. You have been placed on hold. On hold from the world. When one of your kind puts another on hold, that other cannot be heard or make themselves be heard until the other releases them from being on hold. You are on hold. Nobody can see or hear you, until I release the hold button.”

He growled to himself, shaking his head. “Of course, it’s far more complicated than that, but you wouldn’t understand, and this is the best way I can explain it in a way your feeble mind can comprehend.”

Despite his words, there was nothing actually condescending or supercilious in the vampire’s tone. Stafford could see, somehow, in his eyes that he believed it to be a pure and unalterable fact that mortal minds - as he called them - were vastly inferior to those of vampires. He meant no slight by it, it was just how things were.

A typical mortal, Stafford reacted with a typical mortal claim: “Impossible.”

The vampire inclined his head. “Is it?” he asked rhetorically. “Can you explain why you were outside for three hours six minutes, but did not feel like it was that long? Can you tell me why several people - including, I believe, a group - seemed to ignore you? Why, do you think, did the police officer not accompany you back to your door, but disappear as if, well, as if he had never even seen you? And why do your watch and the clock in this house show different times now? Can you explain it?”

Stymied, Stafford had to admit that he could not. As a writer, as a novellist, he was of necessity more open to the fantastic and the immense possibilities presented by the imagination than others would be, but even this was stretching it beyond his capacity to grasp.

And yet, everything this vampire said was true. All had happened as he related. And while one or two incidents could be perhaps explained away, rationalised, as he had been doing while out there in the fog (and where had that fog come from, so suddenly, anyway?), not all of them could.

What about the woman who seemed to be a fan, who had a copy of one of his novels in her bag? Why would she ignore him? And the cop? And again, going right back to the remembrance of his first encounter, why would that guy - why would anyone - allow a minor assault of that nature without responding, even verbally? But no: when he had knocked the guy’s headphones off his head, the man had just picked them up, looking around as if for an assailant he could not see, and had continued on his way. Who would do that? Why would anyone do that?

Unless he really was somehow out of phase with reality, as the vampire insisted he was.

And why? Why would he have done such a thing?

“Because,” said the vampire, as if divining his thoughts, even though he had not voiced them aloud, “I do not wish our game to be interrupted, by the police or by anyone else. I am, actually, quite intrigued. You are not the amateur I had taken you for, Maurice Stafford.”

His eyes flashed again, and the author did not like what he saw. Against all logic, against all he knew to be true, against all his instincts and his scorn for such thinking, he found himself forced to begin to believe that rather than being some lunatic who had come here claiming to be a vampire, an undead creature, a figure from the pages, almost, of one of his bestsellers, the creature who sat in his house, poring over the chessboard with the most intent concentration … what if he was a vampire?

Vampires don’t exist.

But what if they do?

Was it not mere hubris to deny the existence of something whose existence - or lack of - you could not empirically prove? He found himself thinking, there are plenty of stories in ancient lore, legends and even history, to suggest the possibility that perhaps vampires, or at least something like them, may have existed. The legends, the folklore, couldn’t all be made up. Of course, Count Dracula, Lestat and Bill Compton were not real; writers like him had taken the vampire myth and created their own version, first for books, then television and then movies.

But what if, among the fiction and the fantasy, there was to be found a grain of truth? What if the vampires had deliberately kept themselves hidden, fearful of being hunted to extinction, crouching in shadows and only striking so seldom that their attacks were either taken as those of crazed murderers or wild animals, which would be part of their plan?

What if vampires existed, he asked himself again, and found it hard to dismiss the question as he would have done a few hours ago. He had made a living writing about these monsters. What if his writing had attracted, or angered one, one such as this, who had come to - what? Set the record straight? No: he had read Interview With the Vampire, and this was no Louis who sat at his table, ready to pour out his (extremely long) life story to a reporter, or in this case, a writer.

What then? Revenge? But if he had wanted to merely kill him - or, god forbid, he thought, as the sudden willingness to believe established itself in his mind, turn him into one of them - then surely he had had ample opportunity to do so? To warn him, then; threaten him that if he did not stop writing about vampires then this one would see to it he wrote no more? That was a possibility, and one he had now to entertain, given that the vampire had already made it clear that he knew who Stafford was. And surely he had not come here out of mere chance; there was purpose, reason, destiny even in his arriving on the writer’s doorstep.

Might even be a new book in it, he heard his mind say, and forced the thought from it. New avenues for his writing should be the furthest thing from his mind now. He must figure out why this - well, let’s call him what he calls himself, despite the absurdity of it - this vampire had chosen to visit him, what he wanted.

And suddenly it came to him.

A match of wits.

The vampire had been quite candid in his claim that his kind were more intelligent than humans - mortals, as he called them - and must see the chess game as a perfect metaphor for the disparity between the mental evolution of the two races. He no doubt knew - Stafford had no idea how he knew, but he was beginning to accept fatalistically that the vampire had a vast breadth of knowledge, and that there was little he did not know, or could not find out - about his past as a chess champion.

“Your move, I believe,” said the vampire (somehow, though it defied all logic, all reason, he was convinced that this was a vampire now, not just some nut playing at being one). The creature turned its unearthly eyes full upon him. “It’s been your move,” he remarked patiently, “for over three hours now.”

Like a man being dragged to his own execution, Stafford watched as his feet, which seemed to be behaving independently, refused to obey his silent command to take him back out the door and away from this - this monster! - and hauled him towards the desk, whereat waited his opponent.

Philosophically, he considered where he might have gone anyway, had he run: if the vampire was telling the truth - and his experience outside seemed to confirm that, however fantastical a claim it might appear - then he was basically trapped in some sort of personal bubble in which only he and his visitor existed, and should he run even into a crowd of people, nobody was likely to see him. How could he exist like that?

A thought came to him, and he voiced it, somewhat nervously. “What happens when you go? Will I be visible to everyone again?”

“You will,” intoned the vampire, keeping his attention on the board. “If you live.”

“So.” It was almost a relief to hear it. “You’re here to kill me, then.”

The cold eyes looked up. He doubted this creature could be surprised, but that was what seemed to him to register in the red eyes of his opponent.
“Of course,” he said almost pleasantly. “I thought you understood that.”

“I guess, deep down, I did,” admitted Stafford, now turning his own attention to the remaining chess pieces on his side, far outnumbered and outflanked by those of the vampire. “This game for my life, then?”

A very strange sound issued from the vampire. In anyone else, Stafford would have recognised it as being laughter, but since such an emotion would be alien to a creature of the darkness such as his visitor, it sounded more like a choked bark, like something that might issue from the throat of a dog who had swallowed something too large for him. The red eyes came up again, and the thin, black lips quirked up in what he assumed was the vampire attempting to imitate a smile.

“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.”

The creature scoffed, raising one arched eyebrow. “You should know you can’t kill me, you stupid mortal.”

“No,” agreed Stafford. “No, I can’t. But you can.”

“Excuse me?”

“You can take your own life,” repeated the writer. “And that is what I demand you do, should you fail to win this game.”

Another silence, this time either of disbelief or, possibly even … fear? It was some time before the vampire spoke.

“Do you, indeed? And how do you suggest I accomplish that?” But there was definitely a sense of unease written beneath the disdainful exterior he presented to the mortal.

“It’s quite simple,” Stafford informed him. “It’s now -” he glanced at the clock; his own watch was not a reliable barometer of the time, he knew - “four in the morning. The sun will be up around seven. If you win, you kill me, you make your escape before the sun rises, or if it takes longer, then I’m sure you have your secret ways of coming and going that allow you to avoid the burning rays of the sun. However, if you fail to win, you, Caesar Alexander Tiberius Maximus, will face the sun, will not flinch from it, and will die under its cleansing power.”

White rage swept across the vampire’s features, but a slow smile replaced the scowl. After all, he had no fear that he would lose the contest. Lose? To a mere mortal? The very idea! He nodded.

“Very well, Stafford,” he agreed. “It shall be as you say. If,” he raised his eyes and speared the mortal with their icy glare, “you prevail. But you will not, and mark me, mortal,” he warned, in a voice of the branches of trees snapping under winter winds, “you will pay for this insolence. Your death will not be quick, nor painless. Believe me,” he leaned in close, his smile like that of a shark, “I have had a very long time to perfect the art of keeping someone alive for as long as I wish, and for every moment you live, Stafford,” he promised him, “you will be in more pain than your puny mortal mind can even begin to imagine.”

Stafford swallowed: he could show no fear now, no hesitation. “Big words, vampire,” he snapped. “You going to play, or do you intend to bore me to death with your speeches and threats?”

He knew he was going to lose. He had known it from the moment he had made the rash wager. He was good, but the vampire was better, in the same way that a Maserati was better than a VW Beetle. He had no chance. He took his time over his moves, carefully weighed up his strategy, and set traps that the finest chess player would have been proud of. The problem was that, boastful as the vampire’s claim may have been, it did seem as if he was playing the very best who had ever played the game, and every move he made, the vampire countered. Not only that, but where Stafford took long minutes, sometimes half an hour over his move before deciding, the vampire moved instantly, barely even taking the time to think; it was as if he was ten, twenty moves ahead, and he probably was.

Eventually, the inevitable came to pass. With a flat smile that registered no warmth or enjoyment, his opponent moved a bishop to within three squares of Stafford’s king. The piece was surrounded, cut off, alone, with nowhere to go. Sitting back, the vampire said “I believe that is check, mortal. I will admit, you provided me the best diversion I have had in many centuries, and you can indeed be proud of your skill. The game, however, is mine.”

Stafford did not lift his eyes from the board as the vampire gloated. He watched the small ivory pieces, as if by staring at them long and hard enough he could see a way out of the trap he had walked into. Inwardly, he cursed himself. The vampire went on, his voice almost kind.

“As I warned you when we began this match, I had you exactly where I wanted you. And now, there is nowhere for you to go. You have gambled, and fought well, mortal, but the day is mine. As it was always destined to be. The outcome was never in doubt, as I already explained to you.” He flicked his eyes towards the clock. “And still an hour short of sunrise.”

He stood up. All trace of any camaraderie, regret or understanding, if it had ever been there and not just a figment of Stafford’s overactive imagination, was gone now. The vampire was tall and terrible to behold. Like a living shadow, he seemed to reach out and seep into everything, swallowing light, drowning hope as he advanced on the author.

“Now you shall pay the price for trying to humiliate a Prince of the Blood,” he announced darkly. “Do not think you will die easily. I promise you, by the same vow which you made me swear, you will not.”

Stafford looked up, locking eyes with the horrible creature. He tried not to shudder.

“You might want to check that move again,” he advised. The vampire transferred his gaze to the chessboard, the battlefield on which he had triumphed, on which he had left his opponent battered, bloody and beaten. He frowned.

“I don’t -” he began, but Stafford, fighting to keep his elation from showing on his face, pointed out a forgotten rook on the side of the board. In not taking enough time - any time at all - to survey the board properly, the vampire had allowed this lowly piece to threaten his own king. In his haste to take the prize, he had failed to realise he was leaving his own most important piece open to attack. Slowly, he raised his eyes from the board to meet those of the mortal.

Stafford explained it for him, taking great pleasure in doing so. “Your move exposes your king,” he told him, “and places it in check. You can’t do that. It’s an illegal move. Your bishop has to retreat.”

Feverishly scanning the board, the vampire saw that he was right. He could not knowingly, under the rules of chess, leave his king open to attack, even if, by making that move, he could secure victory. It simply was not allowed: if your move exposed your king to attack then you could not make that move.

And therein was the problem, for him, and salvation for Stafford. That move was the last one the vampire could make. And it exposed his king. So while Stafford could not threaten the vampire’s king while the bishop blocked it, he could not move the bishop to attack Stafford’s king.

The game was in stalemate.

For a long time, the vampire examined the remaining pieces on the board, calculating every possible move, and finally banged his fist down beside the board in the first real display of outright fury Stafford had seen him exhibit.

“Stalemate!” he growled.

“Stalemate,” agreed Stafford, grinning. The vampire turned cold, cold eyes on him.

“This trickery will not save you, mortal,” he warned him. “You have not won.”

Stafford heaved a deep breath, one it seemed he had been holding in for hours. “I don’t need to,” he told the vampire. “The Oath you swore was contingent on your not winning. You have not won.”

For a long moment the vampire did not speak. His eyes narrowed to slits, and his fangs protruded from the corners of his lips. The skin seemed stretched even tighter over his face, like a badly-fitting mask which was about to tear.

“I have not lost,” he countered, but Stafford shook his head.

“Doesn’t matter. The precise wording of the Oath was if you do not win. You haven’t. You haven’t lost. I haven’t beaten you, you haven’t beaten me. Neither of us can achieve that. But I didn’t need to win. I just needed to ensure that you didn’t. And you haven’t.”

The truth of the mortal’s words finally dawned on the vampire and his face creased in black anger. He took a step forward, murder in his eyes, but Stafford took a step back, frowning. “You’re surely not going to break your sacred Blood Oath, are you, Caesar Alexander Tiberius Maximus, Prince of the Blood? Whatever agency monitors such things, I think you know they will be watching you.”

It was true. He saw it in the vampire’s face, the only time he had seen real fear there. The creature of the night knew he had been tricked, outmanoeuvred, played at his own game. He had no choice. The Blood Oath had been uttered, sworn to, and he must now keep it, even if it meant his own death.

In the end, Stafford had to admit the vampire met his death with more dignity and - yes, say it - honour than he had expected. With no real fear for his life now, the author waited with his beaten opponent as the sun slowly struggled into the early morning sky. The fog had cleared away; it was going to be a bright, sunny day.

As the vampire turned to exit the door, Stafford found within himself an overwhelming, and perhaps inconceivable desire to offer his hand. The vampire looked at it disdainfully, haughtily, as if someone had asked him to shake hands with a beggar running with lice and stinking of urine, or perhaps more as if he had been offered the paw of a dog. He pushed past Stafford, striding out into the morning sunshine, his head held high, his shoulders square and erect even as tiny wisps of smoke began to rise from his clothing.

Stafford felt it was only right he should stay by the creature’s side as it fulfilled the Blood Oath; no matter how evil he was, what he had done, nobody deserved to die alone.

It didn’t take long, and Stafford was vaguely surprised to find that the expected smell of roasting flesh did not assail his nostrils. Right to the end, the vampire uttered not a single sound, merely stood with his arms crossed, staring at the sun, as if daring his ancient enemy to do its worst. It did. Stafford felt a calm exultation, but also a vague sense of loss when the vampire had been turned to ashes, and for just a moment he felt as if he had lost a friend.

Then he went inside the house, fetched a broom and dustpan, and for good measure tossed the ashes on the fire, where the flames unaccountably flared up for a moment, giving him something of a fright. On shaking legs, he sat down and contemplated the fire for a long time before he finally drifted off to sleep. He was so tired. And as his eyes closed, some trick of the light no doubt made it seem as if the vampire’s face was floating before him, hungrily staring at him.