The Black Dahlia, she was someone who was just waiting for an executioner, waiting for it to happen. She was an ideal victim. I've met quite a few like her. They're just crying out, not just to be killed, but also tortured. She seemed very parasitic, a psychic vampire.
For many years I had heard about an underworld consisting of people who act out a vampire fantasy while I was living in New York. Fortunately for me there are also several books on the phenomena.
I'm just finishing up the next Alex Cross and I'm pleased with it. Some people will look at it as more realistic than Violets are Blue, but only because they won't be able to believe that the vampire underworld is as large and real as it is.
"The vampire underworld is much larger than most people could imagine. It exists in all the cities mentioned in the book, but also in many, many more. Teenagers, especially, seem to like to act out vampire fantasies.
There are two levels of vampirism: one is the regular vampire, which is just like it has always been; and then there's the super vampires, which are a new breed we've created.
When AIDS was at its most brutal, frightening, my-God-what-are-we-going-to-do era, that was when vampire stories and stories about blood and trust swept the literary world.
When they took me to do the camera test for the vampire make up, after they put the prosthetic on, I went though the entire process, I went back to my trailer and I looked in the mirror and I smiled.
