Today, Kain and I are playing chess.

Yesterday we played "see how fast Angel can run" but I'm crying off sick today with a sprained ankle (seems I can run fast but not all that accurately, when Kain is chasing me) so we're forced into more sedentary pursuits.

He is not happy with this arrangement.

Not that he isn't good at chess. In fact, he's a master. One could hardly expect otherwise, what with juggling the dire political situation of Nosgoth for several hundred years and managing to maintain his reputation as a fearsome warlord at the same time – chess is simplicity itself to him.

But apparently, it just isn't any fun anymore.

He puts his claws on a luckless bishop and moves it into the path of my rook. It is a sacrifice, but even I, a mere amateur, can see why he has chosen to offer it. If I take the bishop, it leaves my rook open and my queen unguarded.

This is a move I will have to think about, so I sit back in my chair and regard the board lazily through half-closed eyes.
He is black, of course. He has only one pawn left, but he has never allowed his king to come under threat, not once. Again, this is not entirely surprising. Sacrifice is easy when it's not the important people getting the brunt of it.

I must have been thinking for too long, because he hisses through his teeth, less a threat than an expression of exasperation. I look up once into those sharp, canny eyes and make my decision.

I take the bishop, and wait for his move.

He goes back to fiddling with the taken white pieces and thinking. I have to watch him very carefully. Too much staring and he thinks you're being insubordinate: too little eye contact and he could be out of his seat and at your throat before you've even realised he's moved.

I think I take too many liberties with him. Take yesterday, for example. Like you've seen in the news, you play with tigers, expect to get scratched. The sprain is not serious, and it will heal, but the picture in my mind of Kain pinning me flat with a happy grin and eyeing my throat is one that will stay with me until I die.

You play games with vampires, expect deadly games.

Kain says "Hah!" in a pleased manner, and moves his king for the first time this game. He then stares at me haughtily in a beat-that sort of way. Perhaps he will kill me some day – perhaps not. Today I am babysitting a master vampire for Raziel (Raziel is off doing something necessary and mystical with the wraith-blade – some sort of ethereal panel-beating, possibly, and then he's doing an interview with GQ) and so I am left with the baby.  Although in his mannerisms he reminds me more of a stroppy teenager, denied the right to party on down.

The last time before this week when Raziel left Kain with me, I tried taking him on a field trip. I thought he might be interested in my world, its history perhaps – maybe even a few re-runs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

So we went to Pompeii, popping through the local Gate to make the trip a little quicker (and besides, there's just no getting vampires onto aeroplanes. Above cloud level? With the possibility of daylight catching you in a sealed metal box full of windows? Kain wasn't even contemplating it, and I must say I agreed with him.)

He was very quiet for a precious half hour as we walked the stone streets, last hour before they started cordoning off the interesting bits and before the first few stars began to gleam in the sky. Maybe he liked the feel of age about the place. Or maybe the architecture appealed.

Unfortunately, by the time we reached the Garden of the Innocents, where the famous body casts lie, human figures frozen in time and posture of abject despair and horror, Kain was either bored or getting more vampish as the last trace of sunlight was fading from the sky. He thought they were the single most entertaining thing he'd seen in weeks, and had to be hustled quickly away before he could take notes on new and interesting ways to massacre huge quantities of filthy human scum all in one fell swoop. 

So, no more field trips. We spent the rest of that evening in quieter Herculeneum, with Kain almost screaming with frustration as he tried to understand a) why he wasn't allowed to behave in that way, b) who the hell I thought I was telling him what to do in the first place, and, more importantly, c) why he hadn't been able to eat anybody yet.

Hence the chess. Raziel is a very wise man-vampire-whatever. He knows that Kain is behaving on sufferance – he knows also that I could have died yesterday. There isn't long to go before Defiance is released, so I've only got them for a short time, and then I'm sure they will be very busy – promoting, press releases, photo shoots etc (Kain loves these: the last time a photography team came round he was damn near purring by the time they left. Raziel is not so sure. The photographer WILL keep on asking him which his good side is).  But like I said, he's wise to Kain after their years of close association. Keep him busy, keep his brain ticking over on other problems, and you've got him where you want him. Like all intelligent creatures, vampire or no, Kain gets bored very easily and will start making his own amusement if you aren't careful.

I move a pawn, knowing I am going to lose it. Such is the way with pawns. Raziel does not play chess, he says it gives him a bad feeling for some reason. He quite likes to play Battleship, however.

Kain looks at the pawn as if expecting it to turn on him. He does not make the move I expect him to make. I've set up the pawn to be taken, with a view to possibly getting into him into check in about ten moves. Sometimes I think like a vampire: a little sacrifice can be a good thing.

Kain watches the pawn, he watches me, he seems to be thinking. This is one of those dangerous moments when he is walking that fine line between anger and vast amusement and from experience I know not to make any assumptions until he makes up his mind.

To my surprise he ignores the pawn: with a short bark of triumph he moves me into a checkmate that I never even saw coming.
My luck is in: he's winning, he's happy, and has gone for the amused option.

He leans across the table and his eyes flash at me. Any other man, their eyes would "twinkle" or "shine" – but Kain's gaze is far too jaded and intense for his looks to be anything but wicked when he's amused. He smiles (small children and saintly grannies have run screaming at this before now).

"Kain," he says, in a voice heavy with self-mockery, "refused the sacrifice…"

There is a dreadful moment of stunned silence between us, and then I can't help it – I'm laughing before I can stop it, and he is laughing too, the deep, pleased laugh that normally accompanies the slaughter of innocents.

I suppose there's hope for him yet – if he can learn to laugh at himself, he can learn anything. I tip over my king, then my queen, then every other piece still left on the board, out of principle, and look up to meet his triumphant face.

Even old, he could still be handsome, impressive: but somehow the attractive edge is taken off the strange, demon face when you recall the fate of the last journalist who dared to call Kain a "paper tiger".

Raziel is running out of places to hide the bodies, and Kain is still smiling because they haven't by any means found all the bodies yet.

I reach out to shake his offered claw, the gracious winner, and the massive, cold weight of his grip still surprises me. His talons close around my hand with what I know must be immense care, because I still have all my fingers intact and my skin is not bleeding.

Hmmm. Perhaps if Raziel isn't back tomorrow, I could teach him how to play Twister….