Why vampire stories? What makes them so popular?

The vampire is a symbol of total greed for love, for sex, for life itself. It's a horrifying and fascinating mirror of what is scariest and most tempting about our world. There are vampires all around us-people who can't stop even when they get enough, people whose greed has got them by the throat. Watching them win, and watching them squirm are both mesmerizing experiences. That's why we love the vampire.

Your vampires are women. Why is that?

Women fascinate me and sort of awe me, too. To write passionately about a character like a vampire, you need to fall in love with them. So my vampires always turn out to be women. But there's another reason. That has to do with the feminine myth of our era. In ancient times, there were powerful, dangerous and awesome female entities—Lilith herself, for example. But the myth of the feminine has been reduced. We've gone from Lilith to Tinkerbell. I want to get back to the really interesting female myths-the powerful, wonderful ones of the past. That's why I created Lilith.

Who is Lilith, exactly?

In some middle eastern traditions, she was Adam's first wife. They fought and God gave them the first divorce! Lilith went to live by the Dead Sea, where she had all sorts of children, who turned out to be demons. Lilith's cave is an early myth of the underworld, the unconscious, where anything goes. And when we go into Lilith's cave in my book—when the young, inexperienced hero ends up living there with this ancient, incredibly beautiful, totally experienced vampirewell, sparks fly.

You've created a whole new world of vampires. Tell us about the Keepers.

My idea was, what if vampires were real, what would they be, given that they weren't supernatural? The answer is that they would have to be a different species entirely that had evolved to look like us in order to prey on us more easily. Nature is a master of camouflage, and what better camouflage for a predator than to look exactly like his prey? So my vampires are a separate, ancient species that look just like us but live for thousands and thousands of years. They do that by eating human blood. Their mouths are adapted for bloodsucking and this is their only food. Like most predators, there aren't nearly as many of them as there are of the prey. They call themselves the Keepers because they're very possessive. They've divided the world up into 'keeps,' each one of which belongs to a different group. The keepers rule the world, but in secret, and Lilith is their five thousand year old queen.

And she gets into trouble?

Lilith gets into big trouble. She's been living in luxury in a cave in the Egyptian desert for thousands of years. All this time, the other keepers have been bringing her victims. Suddenly, that stops. She gets hungry. Finally, she leaves in search of food—and to find out what happened to the other keepers. She discovers that mankind has grown up. We've figured out the secret, and the keepers have been getting killed off by professional vampire hunters. They're way up there on the endangered species list. What's worse, while Lilith might be a goddess, she has no idea how to live in the modem world. She can't drive, she's got no money, she doesn't speak the language-the most powerful being on earth turns out to be completely helpless without credit cards. Then the vampire hunters find her, and she ends up broke and on the run.

And that's the end of the story?

The story has a surprise ending. Ultimately, it's a love story, and not about vampire love. It's about human love. But to get there, we go down some very strange roads. For one thing, the greatest of the vampire hunters, Paul Ward, is good because he's part vampire himself. He thinks like they do. Lilith goes after his 17 year-old son and there's a tremendous battle as she tries to get the boy to feed and Paul fights to keep him human. The boy, Ian, has no idea what a vampire even is. This all leads to what I hope is a truly harrowing and surprising climax.