Our tale begins with a showman of much volume and little renown - The Amazing Viernik, appearing on a stage in San Francisco in March 1909. Mr. Viernik traces his practicing of the magical arts back to his native Serbia, where, as a youth, he would travel to Belgrade with his grandfather to attend the magic shows; and to his collection of Penny Dreadfuls - lurid tales of mystery and macabre chronicling the adventures of pirates and rogues, scoundrels and criminals, monsters, witchy women, spirits, demons, great hunters and brilliant scientists, those who dwelled in the fringes of reality and in plain sight in the world of our imaginations.

Simeon Viernikovac traveled to New York City in 1907, tasked with establishing the family trade in America. Unable to find work as a shoemaker's apprentice and slaving away in a factory, Viernikovac heard of a special magic show billed as a one-time-only event - "The Great Switcheroo," as performed by the Magical Mr. E. The Great Switcheroo would actually "wipe someone out of existence" and replace them with someone else. Viernikovac relates how the performance took an unexpected turn when the Magical Mr. E replaced the mannequin standing center stage with his own assistant and made her disappear, only to be replaced instantaneously by a bald man in a bright orange outfit.

During the fear and mayhem that ensued from The Great Switcheroo, Simeon Viernikovac was arrested and deported back to Serbia, where he takes the name Simon Viernik, also known as The Amazing Viernik, and begins performing small magic shows in Belgrade. There he is entrusted to find a vampire that has been killing the people in the surrounding villages. Viernik discovers the skeletal creature at the base of a mountain, weakened from days spent in the sunlight and captures it. Haunted by the Great Switcheroo, Viernik decides to bring his own magic to the world in the form of this vampire kept locked in a cage for audiences to see.

Viernik returns to America and presents his first show in San Francisco, but when the cloth is removed, it reveals a broken, empty cage! A riot ensues, and the Amazing Viernik is arrested and pummeled by two police officers into admitting that there was never any vampire and that his show was just a trick to scare people. But the officers do not believe him. The night before, a body washed ashore with two holes in its neck and empty of blood - and the police demand that Viernik find the vampire that is now stalking the streets of San Francisco.