In search of the urban vampires

Manuela and Daniel Ruda immersed themselves in the darkest myth. They lost their bearings. Someone was bound to get hurt.

In February, in the German town of Bochum, Manuela, 23, and Daniel, 26, were sentenced to 13 and 15 years respectively for the murder of 33-year-old Frank Haagen. Both claimed to be vampires and Manuela had had two teeth removed and replaced by functioning fangs.

But where were they first drawn to these bizarre rituals? The underground clubs of Berlin? The East Village's thriving vampire scene in New York? No, somewhere much closer to home. London, it seems, is the capital of vampiric activity and North London in particular is its centre.

In court, Manuela said that she had been introduced to blood-supping while working at goth clubs in Islington. She had attended 'bite parties', where vampires feed on willing victims.

Rumours have spread about the clubs that she says she visited - although no one remembers her or the places she talked about. Still, Manuela has made her mark here; London's vampires are worried by the publicity. They don't want to be associated with the extreme elements of the scene. Yes, there are vampire clubs in London, they say, but they're a million miles away from the warped world of Manuela and Daniel.

I have an appointment, an interview with a vampire. Walking down a long, dark South London road to a big, Victorian house, I check my directions. As I get to the house, a figure in the window beckons me in. A tall, middle-aged man, lean and elegant in black lacy shirt with fancy cuffs and collar, black trousers and shiny riding boots, opens the door.

Colin is Vampyre Master of The Vampyre ConneXion, a London-based society for celebrants of vampire myth, legend and bloody hokum, from Hammer's classic Drac movies and Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles to Leslie Nielsen's biting satire, Dracula: Dead and Loving It. Colin, who works for Unilever, has gathered his clan; well, the VC committee at least. There is Jenny, Colin's wife, also all in black, who works at a health centre and produces VC's official journal, Dark Knights. Then there is Edd ('two ds'), a 23-year-old office worker from Orpington, tall, all in black, lots of hair, who handles the group's social arrangements. These include cinema, theatre and other cultural trips and the monthly pub meet at the Princess Louise in Holborn.

They are joined by Louise, 23, a PA for Eurostar, in busty rustic wench/goth get-up who looks after membership, John, a hulking 32-year-old decorator in a black leather suit, and the mysterious Klif, who smiles to reveal two gleaming white fangs but won't reveal any personal details.

The Vampyre ConneXion was formed in 1998, after the messy disintegration of the London Vampyre Society, and has about 100 members. For all the committee members, the vampire myth has a strange and powerful pull.

For Colin, it is the lure of immortality, 'the possibilities of it, what you could learn, see, experience. You could become so cultured and intelligent.' For Edd, it is a chance to imagine life beyond the quotidian. 'You can't imagine a vampire working in an office, can you?' For John, the vampire is the ultimate anti-hero. 'I never want to see them die, even the most wicked vampires, I want to see them carrying on killing virgins or whatever it is they are doing. You want to see them win.' For Jenny, the vampire is the definitive tall, dark and handsome stranger with irresistible charm. 'It's a very sensuous thing, isn't it, this ideathat you can't help yourself? This tall, powerful man and you in just a neglig?e. And I always liked the villain, I always wanted to be captured. And if the knight on a white horse appeared, I'd be like, "Don't bother, I'm happy here".'

All agree that the vampire story seems hard-wired into the imagination, an eternal myth, constantly updated and modified for the times. They also agree that the vampire is just an enjoyable fiction.

They are - to use the terminology of the scene - 'lifestylers', out-for-the-Count enthusiasts who are into horror films, Gothic churches, 19th-century Romanticism (the walls of Colin and Jenny's lounge are covered with Pre-Raphaelite prints), good, honest rock music, frilly shirts, coffins and fangs (John, and his mate Robbie, run a nice vamp-themed sideline in domestic caskets, coloured contact lenses and exaggerated canines made from dental acrylic), and even Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

And they are surprisingly sanguine about the uncharitable attention the Ruda case has encouraged. 'We get this on a regular basis,' says Edd. 'We got a lot of attention after the Columbine High School shooting in the States. The killers were wearing black trench coats so everyone said it had something to do with vampires.'

Sometimes the unhinged and murderous adopt props, strike poses. Sometimes it's a vampire schtick. But it has nothing to do with vampire groups like this. They are just having a laugh and they don't mind being laughed at.

As Marysia of the London Vampyre Group puts it: 'We have to be able to laugh at ourselves. Serious trippers we don't need, including people who profess to be "real" vampires, whatever that means.'

Both Vampyre ConneXion and the LVG have a strict no-blood-drinking rule. 'People come to us and ask us if we drink blood,' explains John. 'As soon as they realise we don't do that, they go away. They think we are a waste of time.'

So I go in search of someone who does. I'm out in the twilight zone, just about the end of the line and feeling a little jumpy. It looks like the Bronx, pre-Giuliani, graffiti everywhere. Sinister urchins straddle their scooters. This is Burnt Oak and here be monsters. It's a relief when my vampire turns up to take me to a local pub. Hirudo (not her real name) is tallish, in her late twenties, low-key goth - tied-back red hair, military greatcoat and big boots. Hirudo is a 'real vampire'. She drinks blood.

Tonight she drinks only vodka and Coke and talks about her first rush of blood-lust, what vampires call 'the awakening'. It arrived in her early teens and was not welcome. Already faced with the standard hormonal explosions and facial eruptions, Hirudo started suffering from non-specific but undeniable cravings.

'I tried different things,' she says. 'I was always thirsty so I would drink gallons and gallons of water. But the craving didn't go away.'

Those vampires yet to nail the exact nature of these strange urges, or those simply in denial, will try to sate their appetites in various ways. 'A lot of vampires do end up smoking a lot or eating a lot of chocolate,' explains Hirudo. 'All those rather banal addictions, vampires can push them to the limit. It's not unusual to find very fat vampires.'

Hirudo soon realised gallons of water and bulk-packs of Wagon Wheels were not the answer. 'It just clicked. I knew I had this specific craving for blood.' She is evasive when asked about her first feed and how she managed to secure a willing donor. But wherever it came from, the first donation confirmed all her strong suspicions. She was a vampire.

She is not alone. The internet has hundreds of sites serving the 'real vampire' community. Many are offshoots of the American 'Sanguinarian' group, blood-diners led by the mysterious Father Todd.

Feeding for these real vampires involves finding compliant donors, and the net has proved an invaluable source of gore-givers. Hirudo, though, has trouble explaining quite what the donor gets out of the vampiric exchange. 'Maybe they are fetishists. They find it a sensual experience.' Some, it seems, are drawn from the S&M scene, others are just vampire enthusiasts who prefer giving to taking.

Hirudo is clear that all donors are willing, that blood tests are done, and that the procedure leaves the donor with nothing but a small cut. All real vampires dismiss any idea of a donor being 'turned' through feeding. Vampires are born, not made.

The feeding is usually a private and intimate affair and Hirudo knows of no 'bite parties' of the sort described by Manuela Ruda (feeding by biting is generally discouraged as too great a health risk for all concerned).

Hirudo hasn't fed for a couple of years. Her boyfriend, a non-vamp, is not entirely comfortable with the idea, so she has sworn off the red stuff. For now, at least.

Of course, Hirudo is not a vampire at all. She is a vampiroid, something entirely different, I learn. The Rt Rev Sean Manchester, also a patron of GASP (Guardians Against Satanic Pollution), is president and founder of the Highgate-based Vampire Research Society. Now 57, he is Britain's best-known vampire hunter. His most famous battle with the undead came in 1970 after many years of reported vampire sightings at Highgate Cemetery. Manchester claims to have exorcised the vampire. However, it reappeared in 1974 in a large Gothic house in Crouch End. Here, Manchester did the decent thing and drove a stake through the monster's heart. His book, The Highgate Vampire, features pictures of the decomposing vamp. Since that time, Manchester has continued investigating and exorcising paranormal nuisances all over the country.

As far as Manchester is concerned, a vampire is a hideous, undead wraith, a foul-smelling spirit of malevolence. Much like the vampire of popular imagination, and nothing like Hirudo at all. She is a vampiroid, a poor imitation. This does not make vampiroids harmless. Far from it. According to Manchester, vampiroids 'celebrate all that is dark and depressing' and, he insists, 'a significant number engage in satanic practices and have contact with established diabolists. Many are anarchists and some support Class War. A handful are neo-Nazis. Some are both.'

For Manchester, vampire enthusiasts and vampiroids represent a vile, ungodly and anti-social subculture. Clearly, he's never spent an evening with Colin and friends.

It's hard to see Hirudo as vile and ungodly. It's easier to dismiss her as a delusional crank, or even worry that she is a danger to herself and others. Yet she does not claim to have any superpowers and is anything but anti-social. She does not stalk, hunt or otherwise make a nuisance of herself. She has no time for traditional gothic frills and fancies: brooding in shadows, satanic rites, fangs, capes, coffins or any of the other baggage the vampire tag hauls along with it.

Being of a scientific bent - she is a lab technician by day - Hirudo has set out to provide a rational explanation, based around bio-electricity, for vampirism. Her theory has something to do with the nasty emissions produced by mobile phones and the like. She thinks that such emissions may mutate babies in the womb, forcing genetic wrong-turns. Such wrong-turns have produced the 200-odd vampires now living across the UK. Hirudo is pretty con-fident that the real vampire population is that limited.

Three years ago, Hirudo set up a website called Scarlet Moon, the UK's only dedicated resource for real vampires. Much of the information on the site tends to the prosaic. Much space is given over to irritable bowel syndrome, apparently a common vampire complaint, and food intolerance.

The site also features a message board, classified ads and chat rooms. The classifieds provide an insight into the typical 'real vampire'. Many are teenagers, clearly troubled, isolated and misunderstood - and most are women.

Hirudo admits that a lot of the visitors to her site are suffering from nothing more dramatic than teenage angst.

'If you look at the people posting on vampire sites, most of them are between 12 and 20, and the vast majority are women. Teenagers want to rebel in every way and vampirism is one of the popular ways to do it at the moment. You have the whole new metal scene, which is also encouraging it. People use the whole thing as a prop, convince themselves that this whole fantasy world is real.'

It also means that most people pass through the 'community', leave when they get bored or grow out of their tumultuous teens. Some, however, stay around.

'There are older members who have been round for a while, professionals with families. And they are the real thing. It is a bit too far gone to be teenage angst.'

Hirudo believes in vampires and knows that most of us do not; she knows that most of us think that it's some psycho-sexual delusion or the result of some psychic wound Band-Aided by fantasy, a minor madness. And so she lives part of her life in the shadows. She sees other vampires in the pub and at house parties, but that has to be compartmentalised, locked away from others in her life. The Rudas of this world only make things worse.

Hirudo's mother is no longer alive and she is horrified at the thought of telling her father about being a vampire. 'Christ, no!' she says, appalled. 'He doesn't even know I smoke.'