In the spine-tingling, pulse-pounding tradition of "Interview With The Vampire," a chilling look into the secret world of the Vampiri, which exists around us always -- invisible, unsuspected . . . until we feel the prick of teeth at our neck in a dream and wake up to find . . . an end to all dreaming and a beginning to a unliving nightmare! -tingling, pulse-pounding tradition of "Interview With The Vampire," a chilling look into the secret world of the Vampiri, which exists around us always -- invisible, unsuspected . . . until we feel the prick of teeth at our neck in a dream and wake up to find . . . an end to all dreaming and a beginning to a unliving nightmare! In the spine-tingling, pulse-pounding tradition of "Interview With The Vampire," a chilling look into the secret world of the Vampiri, which exists around us always -- invisible, unsuspected . . . until we feel the prick of teeth at our neck in a dream and wake up to find . . . an end to all dreaming and a beginning to a unliving nightmare! Michael Romkey is a newspaper editor and author of the cult classic I, Vampire, as well as The Vampire Papers, The Vampire's Violin, The Vampire Princess, The Vampire Virus, Telluride Blood, and others. He lives in Bettendorf, Iowa. PART I     New York City   I Kewpie Doll   CHRONICLE NOTES: He called himself “Becker Thorne” in New York City. His real name would have attracted attention even from those who did not know about the Vampiri. The following excerpts are from “Thorne’s” diary. —Editor   This city has magnificent Neon.   I read tonight about a gallery near the Plaza Hotel where an entire showing has been devoted to Neon sculpture. I have not been there yet, but my soul quivers with the anticipation of visiting such a Holy of Holies. Imagine the epiphany of being surrounded by the divine hum and glow of creation, like a butchered martyr borne Heavenward upon the snowy doves’ wings of angels!   I must wait until the proper hour has come around before I put off my shoes to worship in the presence of my angry god. I will visit the sacred place after midnight, when the others have gone. I dare not go with others present, for I might find it impossible to control myself amid the bliss of such Revelation. Afterward, filled with inspiration, I will give myself completely up to bliss and joy. I shall stroll through Central Park. There is a new pastime in America called “wilding.” I am keen to try it! After drinking from the Neon fount of inspiration divine, I shall be in precisely the right frame of mind to establish a new standard of wilding savagery. These children know nothing of Neon, of the abandon and power it brings.   I will always remember the Grace I experienced the first time I saw Neon and knew it. It was in 1928. I’d returned from our first long stay in Europe. I bought a bloodied Auburn and set off for the drive to Mississippi. I’d just come around a curve. There it was: the shivering electric vision! Oh, hallowed moment! I knew then how Moses must have felt when he went up on the mountain and beheld the burning bush.   The Neon flamingo sat atop a roadhouse on a deserted stretch of highway. It was a magnificent electric creature, wondrous and terrible. And I knew deep in my soul, in a place beyond words, that I was in the presence of a seraph—or some similar angelic being, for the heavenly apparition was unlike any of the ten families of angels I’d learned about when I was but a sweet and innocent babe, sitting on dear Mother’s lap, learning to read the Bible. No, this was a new kind of angel, an angel of the Neon, come to Earth to give me God’s sign.   And I knew that only I could see the messenger. Only I could understand what it signified.   Trembling, I pulled the car to the shoulder and turned off the motor.   God’s messenger stared down at me with its chilling gimlet eye—an eye the incandescent red of Hellfire. And the Neon spoke:   Bold hunter, brave warrior,   You have been chosen as My Fury.   I heard the words not with my ears but with my heart. I fell down across the seat of the automobile and hid my face, prostrating myself before the messenger of the Lord. I was unworthy—yet, I, who had suffered so much, who had wandered more than sixty years in the wilderness, struggling to develop my hunter’s spirit, had been chosen! Miraculous be the ways of Neon!   I cried with disbelief, not daring to raise my face, fearing some terrible mistake. I wanted to ask why, yet I didn’t have the courage to question God. But knowing all, the Neon saw the doubt in my heart and answered.   Your vengeance knows no mercy.   Which I knew was true.   Go to Jerusalem, My Fury.   The daughters and sons of the wicked must be punished.   And then I understood! I was the Neon’s Fury. My work was filled with wrath, and because it was righteous, it found favor in the eyes of Neon.   I stayed in that car late into the night, crying and singing hymns of praise, h