Why My Monsters Aren't Supernatural

I don't believe in vampires.

I don't believe in succubi or sirens, either, and I've never been particularly inclined to believe in ghosts, witches casting spells in the dark, or most of the other supernatural explanations human beings have created for things that frighten us.

That may seem like an odd starting point for a writer who created an ancient predatory species living secretly among humanity, but it's actually one of the reasons the Kalos exist.

My father's family came from Slovenia, and he used to tell me about the superstitions he grew up around: witches, omens and supernatural explanations for things that, to him, didn't require anything supernatural at all. I always found that fascinating. Human beings have been creating monsters for as long as we've been telling stories.

At some point, I started wondering whether we might have the equation backward.

What if people didn't invent monsters because nothing happened?

What if something really did happen, and the monster was simply the explanation they gave it?

Imagine encountering something hundreds or thousands of years ago that looked human and yet produced reactions in you that made absolutely no sense. There was no modern biology to consult, no understanding of brain chemistry and no scientific vocabulary capable of explaining why your own body or mind had suddenly behaved in ways you couldn't understand.

You'd need an explanation.

So would everyone who heard the story afterward.

Perhaps there was blood at the scene of one encounter, and eventually the creature in the story began drinking it. Perhaps someone experienced an overwhelming sexual response to another and described being bewitched. Somewhere else, irresistible attraction became a song no human could resist.

The experience that started the story might have been real even if the explanation wasn't.

There may have been another reason those explanations survived so well.

Sometimes they were convenient.

Human beings have always had to explain our own behavior, particularly when that behavior violates the expectations of our families, communities, religions or even ourselves. Admitting that you wanted something you weren't supposed to want can be considerably harder than saying something made you want it.

A siren did it.

A succubus seduced me.

Something unnatural took control.

Perhaps the person telling the story wasn't entirely lying.

That's one of the questions underneath The Kalos Chronicles. What happens when something can affect you in ways you don't completely understand while still leaving enough of you in the equation to make responsibility uncomfortable?

I'm not going to answer that here.

The humans who first encountered the Kalos wouldn't have understood what they were dealing with, and neither should you. Not yet.

What I will tell you is that the Kalos aren't vampires. They aren't demons, succubi, sirens or anything else that requires the supernatural.

They don't need magic.

Whatever happened long ago to create the stories humanity eventually told about monsters, the Kalos have had very little reason to correct us. Every argument about whether vampires or demons exist keeps attention fixed on creatures that don't.

Meanwhile, something else has been living beside us all along.

I find that considerably more interesting.

Because you can stop believing in vampires.

The Kalos don't require you to believe in them at all.

— Antonia Portage

Grey House: The Feeding, Book One of The Kalos Chronicles, is coming January 6, 2027.