The Protagonist Speaks

Dear readers, tonight with me is a preternatural investigator (a private investigator specialising in the supernatural), and her latest intern.

Hemlock: Hi, I’m Hemlock Connal, Preternatural Investigator.

Morgan: I’m Morgan Burns, Professional Intern.

Hemlock: We first work together in Another Dead Intern, hopefully no spoilers, but also working together in a short Holiday ditty called Little Drummer Boy.

Tell us a little about where you grew up. What was it like there?

Hemlock: My mother is Queen Fand, of the Sidhe Shadow Court. So I grew up in the castle, training with the court. That is up until I was thirteen, when I played a trick on an Earl of the Summer Court at a party. I put an enchantment on him to make him fall in love with a pine tree. It was funny at first, until he started cramming pine cones up his rectum. They said he got six, but I counted seven!

Anyway, rather than have me executed, the Queen had mercy and I was banished for 13 years, stripped of most powers, and lost my beautiful voice. They basically made sure I was cursed to sound like I’d been gargling acid and broken glass for a lifetime. After that, I lived with dad. Old Man Connal was the private investigator, but he was an independent practitioner of the magical arts, so he dealt with investigations in the magical community. When he died a year or so ago, I took over the family business.

Morgan:  I grew up in an Indiana town, had a good lookin’ mama who never was around. I but I grew up tall, and I grew up right, with them Indiana Girls on them Indiana Nights

Hemlock: Damnit Burns, that’s the lyrics to Mary Jane’s Last Dance by Tom Petty.

Morgan: … it’s mostly accurate.

Hemlock: Fair enough.

Did you have any favourite toys as a child? Any cherished memories?

Hemlock: I had a Curious George doll. Got it from my dad one time when I visited him before I got banished. I kept it with me after, which seemed dumb, but it was a comfort thing. Unfortunately, I had it with me when dad dragged me along on a job. A monastery was having an issue with a yokai that followed some new monks over from Japan. One thing led to another, and he had to trap the spirit in the Curious George doll. I still have it, but now it has a vengeful spirit bound to it. He does help with tasting blood for quick analysis when I need random facts about something.

Morgan: My dad didn’t believe in furthering the capitalist ideals of major toy corporations. So, I had to make the toys I had in his woodshop. I wasn’t really good at making action figures or most things like that, but I did have a knack for furniture. Honestly, the thing I loved most was this one old fashioned wood plane he had in the shop. That thing could take a see through layer of wood off the surface, oh so smooth.

Hemlock: Burns?

Morgan: Yeah?

Hemlock: You are a complete and utter dork.

What do you do now?

Hemlock: We are Preternatural Investigators. Well, I am, Burns is just an intern.

Morgan: C’mon, I’m a bit better than that.

Hemlock: That doesn’t mean we go around killing vampires for people or looking for ghosts in resold haunted houses. It just means we do private investigations for the preternatural community. Which means doing a lot of the same stuff a PI would do, a lot of cheating spouse cases, insurance fraud, white collar crime discovery, that sort of stuff. Just, with, y’know, vampires, witches, warlocks, mages, werewolves, sometimes the Sidhe, and other various species and members of the preternatural community of Boston.

What can you tell us about your latest adventure?

Hemlock: There were stolen memories that led us to the murders, the murders led us to the drugs, and more drugs led us to the nightmares.

Morgan: Ah, don’t forget, it was me taking more drugs that led us to the nightmares.

Hemlock: Semantics, don’t try to be a glory hog, Burns.