The Vampire Connection is an interconnected haven of vampire bars around the world in the twentieth century frequented by mortals and immortals alike. The principal law throughout the Vampire Connection is that no killing is allowed inside a vampire bar. Mortals are generally ignorant of the presence of vampires unless a vampire informs them of their existence or a mortal has telepathy, either as a psychic, like members of the Talamasca, or as a witch, like members of the Mayfair family. Immortals are prohibited from killing mortals and vampires here. Thus, vampire bars in the Vampire Connection are a sanctuary for the Undead. Nothing like this phenomenal truce has ever existed before among blood drinkers. The Vampire Connection is also the means by which vampires promulgate secretive information about their kind.
The majority of these bars are named after people and characters who have affected vampire culture. London’s vampire bar is called Dr. Polidori; Paris’s bar is Lamia; Los Angeles’s bar is Bela Lugosi; New York has two bars, Carmilla and Lord Ruthven; San Francisco’s vampire bar is a magnificently beautiful cabaret on Castro Street called Dracula’s Daughter. There is even an unnamed vampire bar in New Orleans. As of 1985, no bars in the Vampire Connection are allowed to be named after characters or subjects from Louis’s book Interview with the Vampire because they concern real events in cosmology of the Vampire Chronicles.
However, when the vampire Lestat breaks the ancient laws by revealing vampire secrets, another vampire writes “The Declaration in the Form of Graffiti” in black felt-tip pen on the red wall of the back room of Dracula’s Daughter. The declaration states the events of the vampire Lestat’s rise to fame with his autobiography and popular rock band. Copies of the declaration are disseminated to every bar throughout the Vampire Connection, urging all vampires to destroy Lestat, Gabrielle, Louis, Armand, all of Lestat’s cohorts, friends, and associates.
The Vampire Connection is obliterated by Akasha when the music of the Vampire Lestat band urges her to rise and commence the Great Burning of 1985.
The Vampire Connection appears in The Vampire Lestat (1985) and The Queen of the Damned (1986). For more perspectives on the Vampire Connection in the Vampire Chronicles, read the Alphabettery entries Bela Lugosi, Carmilla, Dracula’s Daughter, Dr. Polidori, Lamia, Lord Ruthven, and Vampire Bar.