Gage’s Guide to the Supernatural

by J.A. Campbell

A short intro. My name is Gage. ‘Course my parents didn’t name me that, but Gage is much better than Charles. Especially when you hunt the supernatural. I’m in college right now in this small town in the New England states. (Can’t tell you exactly where, don’t want anyone reading this to come after me.) I grew up in Montana. I met these other dudes, Tad and Gary, in one of my history classes, 101 I think, and we started talking about some of the weird shit we’d seen. We decided someone needed to be vigilant, and that we might as well do it. Imagine our surprise when we ran into a real vampire? Guess she’s all right, but most of the rest of ‘em aren’t. We joined forces with the girls and this other dude, Alexander, and now we keep our corner of the world safe from the supernatural.

First off, the biggest baddies out there. Vampires – Everyone hates them, even other vampires. They are strong, fast, allergic to the sunlight, and pretty surly. Obviously, they crave human blood and most of them are killers. I’ve met one exception to the last. She doesn’t kill humans, just other supernaturals. I’ve heard from others that you can’t assume that all vampires have the same powers, but they all have the bloodlust, and you just can’t trust them. Cutting off their heads and burning them are both really good ways to bring them down. A stake to the heart won’t kill them, but it’ll slow them down.

The Sidhe – People hate these guys almost as much as they hate vampires. They are arrogant, use magic, and generally think they are better than everyone else. I think their severe allergy to cold iron proves otherwise. We’re working on some spells, yes, real magic, to keep these guys away from us, but you can deck yourself out in cold iron and carry a shotgun and they’ll usually leave you alone. Unlike vampires, the Sidhe aren’t out to kill humans (most of the time) but they do like to control you, mess with your head, things like that.

Selkies – People who turn into seals. Who’d’a thunk it huh? Apparently not just legend, these seal people are real and have small colonies all over the world. They’re usually mischievous and they leave normal humans alone as long as humans leave them alone. Haven’t met one yet, but I hear they also have minor problems with cold iron and are related to the Sidhe.

Werewolves – Haven’t met one of these yet either. I’d guess a pissed off werewolf would be almost as dangerous as a vampire. Traditional weakness is silver and I carry silver bullets. Will update when I have more concrete information.

Aliens – hey if vampires and werewolves exist, why not aliens? Tad just looked over my shoulder and told me I needed to tone down the conspiracy theory crap, so there you go. They’re out there. I don’t think tin foil hats are going to keep you safe though.

Until next time.

Gage.

Senior Year Bites blurb:

Senior year is supposed to be fun: boys, dances and graduation.

It's significantly harder to enjoy it when you’re dead.

Truth or Dare is supposed to be fun too. It’s not even close to dangerous, so playing at Steph's house didn't seem like a bad idea. My dare? Spend the rest of the night in the graveyard next to her house. It was only a couple of hours until false dawn, my proscribed return time, so no big deal right? Right.

I survived the attack, but it took me a few days to figure out what was going on. I mean vampires might stalk pop culture, but they're just myths. Yeah. Not so much.

School is a lot more difficult when you're a nocturnal creature of the night. I was managing, but I couldn't keep it hidden from my friends for long. After I managed to accidentally save one of our cheerleaders from her drunk and ill-intentioned boyfriend. Steph decided that we should be cool, like superheroes, and fight crime.

Only I’m a vampire, not a hero, and we live in a sleepy New England town, so crime's a little harder to come by. At least it is until a serial killer moves into the area. He’s got the authorities stumped, but then again, the cops don't have a teenage, blood-sucking, non-hero on their team.

Bio:

Julie writes fantasy novels. When she’s not out riding her horse, she can usually be found sitting in front of her computer with a cat on her lap and her dog at her side. Gage is a character in her first Young Adult Urban Fantasy, Senior Year Bites.

As a thank you for commenting, we’re giving away one copy of a Decadent book of your choice. Leave a comment telling me what your favorite supernatural species is and a way for us to contact you (email is best). I’ll contact the winner in 7 days.