M: I know you were born in England and you’re a world traveler, so I’m curious why you decided to make North America your home.

H:  Well, to be honest, I don’t really like to tell people where I live, exactly.  A bit paranoid I guess.  I will tell you that my fondness for the States lies within the laughable puritanical hypocrisy that pervades its people.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Americans.  Especially the black eyeliner--fishnet crowd; the cutters and the mumblers; the painted, pierced and perverse.  But I find it funny that the sordid counterculture I so thoroughly enjoy exists against the backdrop of one of the most sexually repressed societies in the world.

M: I understand you are quite the connoisseur of fine foods.  Tell me what you would consider one of the best meals you’ve ever eaten, and how about something you’ve eaten most would consider unique at best.

H:  Connoisseur? Well that sounds bloody pretentious doesn't it? I enjoy a nice late night fry-up as much as the next bloke.  Though I admit, I do have an anxious palate.  I grow bored with food rather quickly, so I am always trying new dishes, and I do appreciate quality.  You know there is an upsurge in offal delicacies in the UK right now--taking the bits and bobs and turning them into something surprisingly delicious.  It’s almost like a contest for some, really--like a rite of passage to eat a sheep’s arsehole with candied chickpeas or chitterlings and trotters in a blood and beef broth.  It’s all fine, I suppose, if not a bit sensationalized.  I enjoy spicy foods quite a bit, and one of my favorites was Nha Trang Eel I had from a street vendor in Ho Chi Minh City a few years ago.

M: Sheep assholes in blood broth?  Sounds like a Fear Factor special to me, but I’ll take your word for it that it’s fine.

So I hear you may partake in a glass of absinthe on occasion.  Some say it is a psychoactive drug and could cause altered states of consciousness.  What do you think?

H:  La Fee Verte, the nectar of the Artemisia absinthium leaf.  Partake?  No.  The Green Fairy and I have a very deep and ardent relationship.  We kiss like lovers kiss, fight like lovers fight. She is French, therefore tempestuous, passionate.  I am British, and practical, sensible.  We are Wellington and Napoleon; Churchill and de Gaulle. Psychoactive?  Perhaps, though the chemical blamed for that,  thujone, is in such small quantities in real absinthe as to have almost no effect.  Absinthe is not a drug.  She is a guide.  Sometimes she takes you where you would like to go, but most of the time she takes you to where she would like to go.

M: Never “kissed” the Green Fairy myself, but I’ll admit your description gives it quite the allure.  Maybe I’ll give it a try sometime.

I see quite a few Jodi Foster pictures hanging on the wall behind you.  She is one hell of an actress and quite the babe.  Have you ever met her?  Do you have a favorite movie she stared in?

H: I have been legally advised to make no admission that I have ever been physically near Jodie Foster, and that I am currently complying with all court orders to that effect.  Jodie Foster is a talented performer, and I am merely a fan of her work.  I found Taxi Driver and The Accused to be enjoyable movies.  Next question please.

M: No problem.  With the preliminaries out of the way, let’s get into the good stuff.  I’m not sure exactly what you do, other than I know it’s not just auditing.  At least I’ve never heard of an accounting type that travels the world, drinks absinthe, and carries a gun, which we’ll get to in a minute.  Is it accurate to say you are a demon hunter?

H:  Has Mrs. Bothwell cleared this?  have you spoken with her?  I apologize, I thought “Choate Road” was the student newspaper for Choate Rosemary Hall, the Connecticut preparatory school.  I’m assuming that Bothwell has cleared us to discuss my work responsibilities.  I am not a “demon hunter” insomuch as a “conduit hunter.”  The presence of what you would call “demons” relies upon the integration of three components:  the Abyss, which houses dark supernatural matter in an incorporeal form; the confluence, the geographical location on the Earth where the veil between the Abyss and our World is the thinnest; and the conduit, a human being with the tools necessary to tap into the Abyss.  While I am dispatched on occasion to contain the manifestations from the Abyss, my abilities against those manifestations are limited.  I am much more effective in locating, and then closing, the conduit.  Frankly, it’s all a bloody mess--tiresome and troubling.

M: Wow, definitely more than just a demon hunter, and safe to say a bit more dangerous than the potential of a paper cut.

To help clear it up for me, which of the three components do what I refer to as demons originate from?

H: They come from the Abyss.  It all comes down to the power, ethos and objectives of the conduit.  The Abyss is nondiscriminatory, possesses no individual mythos or pantheaon, it is a combination of all of them  It’s an amorphous glob of sinister matter with the combined sentience of millions of captured souls.  It or they maintain their memories and they possess self-awareness, but they may not necessarily cling to the beliefs they once held in the corporeal form. The conduit, however, relies upon a summoning instrument--a grimoire usually.  That instrument will define the manifestation-that and the conduit’s own belief system.