Daughter of Hounds Read online

  Praise for Murder of Angels

  “I love a book like this that happily blends genres, highlighting the best from each, but delivering them in new configurations…. In Murder of Angels, the darkness is poetic, the fantasy is gritty, and the real-world sections are rooted in deep and true emotions. Lyrical and earthy, Murder of Angels is that rare book that gets everything right.”

  —Charles de Lint

  “[Kiernan’s] punk-rock prose and the brutally realistic portrayal of addiction and mental illness make Angels fly.”

  —Entertainment Weekly (A-)

  “Kiernan’s best book to date, joining her always-prodigious gift for language with a wrenching, compelling story.”

  —Locus

  “Kiernan can write like a banshee…. [She] paints her pages in feverish, chiaroscuro shades. A bridge to the beyond, built out of exquisite dread.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Praise for Low Red Moon

  “The story is fast-paced, emotionally wrenching, and thoroughly captivating…. Kiernan only grows in versatility, and readers should continue to expect great things from her.”

  —Locus

  “Low Red Moon fully unleashes the hounds of horror, and the read is eerie and breathtaking…. The familiar caveat ‘not for the faint of heart’ is appropriate here—the novel is one of sustained dread punctuated by explosions of unmitigated terror.”

  —Irish Literary Review

  “Effective evocations of the supernatural…a memorable expansion of the author’s unique fictional universe.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Praise for Threshold

  “Threshold is a bonfire proclaiming Caitlín R. Kiernan’s elevated position in the annals of contemporary literature. It is an exceptional novel you mustn’t miss. Highly recommended.”

  —Cemetery Dance

  “A distinctively modern tale that invokes cosmic terrors redolent of past masters H. P. Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood…a finale that veers unexpectedly from a seemingly inevitable display of supernatural fireworks to a subtly disarming denouement only underscores the intelligence behind this carefully crafted tale of awe-inspired nightmare.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “[Caitlín R. Kiernan is] the most singular voice to enter the genre since Neil Gaiman popped up in graphic novels and Stephen King made movies live inside books…. If you haven’t sampled her work yet, you haven’t really been reading the future of horror and dark fantasy, only its past.”

  —SF Site

  “Kiernan’s prose is tough and characterized by nightmarish description. Her brand of horror is subtle, the kind that is hidden in the earth’s ancient strata and never stays where it can be clearly seen.”

  —Booklist

  “Threshold confirms Kiernan’s reputation as one of dark fiction’s premier stylists. Her poetic descriptions ring true and evoke a sense of cosmic dread to rival Lovecraft. Her writing envelops the reader in a fog concealing barely glimpsed horrors that frighten all the more for being just out of sight.”

  —Gauntlet

  Praise for Silk

  Winner of the International Horror Guild Award for Best First Novel Finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel Nominated for the British Fantasy Award

  “Caitlín R. Kiernan draws her strength from the most honorable of sources, a passion for the act of writing. Her tightly focused, unsparing, entranced gaze finds significance and beauty in the landscape it surveys.”

  —Peter Straub

  “A remarkable novel…deeply, wonderfully, magnificently nasty.”

  —Neil Gaiman

  “A daring vision and an extraordinary achievement…. Caitlín R. Kiernan is an original.”

  —Clive Barker

  “Caitlín R. Kiernan writes like a Gothic cathedral on fire…. [Her] work is populated with the physically freaky, mentally unstable, sexually marginalized characters who have caused so much consternation in conventional circles—but Caitlín R. Kiernan is headed in an entirely different direction. Her unfolding of strange events evokes not horror, but a far larger sense of awe.”

  —Poppy Z. Brite

  “[Kiernan] has what it takes to excite me as a reader…. Think of Poppy Z. Brite with slightly more accessible prose and characters who aren’t quite so outré…. I just loved this book and can’t wait to see what she writes next.”

  —Charles de Lint

  “An observational coming-of-age novel that astutely and empathetically provides connection between characters and readers…a skillfully constructed Southern gothic of profound creepiness…an incremental triumph of texture and layering, harkening back to an earlier tradition of supernatural fiction, an era when storytelling took as much time as it needed to accrue the maximum effect…. Hers is a dark and mellifluous voice to which we should listen.”

  —Locus

  “Kiernan’s writing is meaty, atmospheric, and evocative; her prose is well crafted and terrifically engaging…. Silk is a strong first showing, and Kiernan should have a bright future ahead of her.”

  —Fangoria

  “An engrossing and exquisitely lyrical novel…that could conceivably transfuse characters and settings with a Poppy Z. Brite novel.”

  —Hellnotes

  “A novel with an uncommonly rich texture…should establish [Kiernan] as an important writer of the future. This novel transcends the goth genre.”

  —Necrofile

  “Spun as beautifully as the many webs within…. You absolutely must read it.”

  —Carpe Noctem

  “A masterful story by an extraordinary new voice in literature…on her way to becoming an incredibly well-known—and well-respected—talent. Silk is simply the extraordinary beginning of an incredible journey, both for Kiernan and her readers.”

  —Alabama Forum

  “Kiernan is uniquely herself, but even if you miss the endorsement by Neil Gaiman, you cannot fail to see the kindred spirit that flows through their writing. I feel no risk in voicing the opinion that if you enjoy one, you will relish the other.”

  —SF Site

  DAUGHTER OF HOUNDS

  CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN

  ROC

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © Caitlín R. Kiernan, 2007

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Kiernan, Caitlín R.

  Daughter of hounds / Caitlín R. Kiernan.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 1-4295-2813-3

  I. Title.

  PS3561.I358D38 2007

&
nbsp; 813’.54—dc22 2006018475

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  For my agent, Merrilee Heifetz, for whom I will someday

  write a pleasant book…

  …and for Poppy and Chris and the city of New Orleans.

  May the days ahead be kinder.

  In memory of Elizabeth Tillman Aldridge.

  (1970–1995)

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  T he attentive reader will note several obvious debts that this book owes to the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937), as well as to Sir Richard F. Burton (1821–1890) and his classic English translation of Antoine Galland’s French rendering of the original Arabic Alf Layla (The Thousand and One Nights, c. 850 CE). Considering the medieval legend that anyone foolish enough to read the whole of The Thousand and One Nights would go mad, it seems not unlikely that it may have served, in part, as the inspiration for Lovecraft’s Arabic Necronomicon.

  Never once has a novel come easily to me, but I think it’s safe to say that I’ve never written one during a time of such personal and emotional turmoil as I endured during the two long years spent writing Daughter of Hounds. My grateful thanks to everyone who has made these difficult times a little less so, but especially to Kathryn (my own heart’s Book of Shadows), Jim Shimkus and Jennifer Lee, Byron White, Jada Walker and Katharine Stewart, Anita W. Nicker (my girl in Barcelona), my mother, William Schafer and Subterranean Press, Nar’eth ni’glecti Mericale (figment, familiar, reluctant goddess, and five-time alter ego), John Morgan (this book’s first editor), and Liz Scheier (its second) for all their enthusiasm, insight, and encouragement, the intrepid Travis Burton (who got me into the old train tunnel beneath College Hill), and to my agent, Merrilee Heifetz. A special thank you to Dr. Richard B. and Carol Pollnac for their generous aid and hospitality during the summer of 2004, while I was scouring Rhode Island and Massachusetts for the black keys with which to unlock this story, as well as to the staff of the Robert W. Woodruff Library and the William L. Matheson Reading Room (Emory University) and the Providence Athenaeum. And also to the readers who’ve stuck with me all these years and, particularly, to everyone who’s been brave enough to subscribe to Sirenia Digest. Shine on, all of you.

  This novel was written on a Macintosh iBook.

  All look and likeness caught from earth,

  All accident of kin and birth,

  Had passed away. There was no trace

  Of aught on that illumined face,

  Upraised beneath the rifted stone

  But of one spirit all her own—

  She, she herself, and only she,

  Shone through her body visibly.

  —SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

  I lost a world the other day.

  Has anybody found?

  You’ll know it by the row of stars

  Around its forehead bound.

  —EMILY DICKINSON

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  ONE EMMIE

  TWO SOLDIER

  THREE NEW YORK

  FOUR WOONSOCKET

  FIVE ANGELL STREET

  SIX SHADOW AND FLAME

  SEVEN STAR

  EIGHT INTERSECTIONS

  NINE THE BAILIFF

  TEN THE YELLOW HOUSE

  EPILOGUE APRIL

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  I PARALLEL LIVES

  II LOST GIRLS

  PROLOGUE

  I

  The ghoul lady takes out her white linen handkerchief and uses one corner to dab at her watering left eye. It’s an old wound, a relic of her spent and reckless youth, but it still bothers her sometimes, especially when the weather Above is wet. And today the weather Above is very wet, all of Providence caught up in the final, rainy, death-rattle sighs of something that was a hurricane only a few days before. She sits on the wooden stool that’s been provided for her and blinks and gazes down her long muzzle at the dozens of faces staring impatiently back at her from the candlelight and shadows trapped beneath the Old North Burial Ground. The restless assembly of her wards, ghoul pups and human changelings seated together on the damp earth, wriggle about and whisper among themselves. She clicks her teeth together once, a sound that might draw blood, and they grow a little quieter. She wishes again that she were back in the warmth of her own dry burrow, deep beneath the basement of the old yellow house on Benefit Street, the familiar weight of College Hill pressing down around her, protecting her ancient, aching bones and her bad eye from this damned inclement weather.

  “Myself, I would have postponed this outing,” she says, and not for the first time that night, “but Master Shardlace feels most emphatically that schedules are made to be kept, so here we are, one and all.”

  Up front, one of the changelings sneezes.

  “Likely as not,” says Madam Terpsichore, addressing the child directly, “we shall all catch our deaths this evening. But let us not falter an instant in our dedication. At least the program shall not be disrupted.” And with that, she shifts her poppy-colored eyes towards the spot where Master Shardlace, lately of the Mystic and Stonington Village warrens, is crouched, half-hidden by the dangling roots of a sycamore tree. He flinches at her glance, and that gives her some small measure of satisfaction. “Wipe your nose,” she barks at the child who sneezed, and it does so.

  “The question at hand,” Madam Terpsichore continues, “that most urgent matter of history and propriety and etiquette which has brought us forth from the succor and haven of our dens, which has brought—nay, dragged—us each and every one out into this tempest…” And she pauses here to spare another acid glance for Master Shardlace and his roots. He pretends not to notice. “The question,” she says, “is, indeed, a grave thing.”

  A few of the students snicker at the pun while Madam Terpsichore dabs at her eye again. One careless moment more than a century ago and she still bears this scar, the ugly mark of a lost instant’s indecision, an insult that she would have done well to let pass. Then tonight her eye would not be throbbing and watering as though it envied the storm Above.

  “A wonder we are not all drowned,” she says dramatically and shakes her head.

  “The lesson,” Master Shardlace growls softly from his hiding place, prompting her, risking another glare or something more substantial. “If we could only proceed, we would sooner find ourselves home and snug again.”

  “Oh, most assuredly,” Terpsichore hisses between her long incisors and eyeteeth, and he looks quickly down at the ground between his splayed feet and retreats deeper into the tangled veil of sycamore roots. She wonders, for the hundredth or so time, exactly what he might have done to deserve his exile and, more important, why ever Master Danaüs chose to give him safe haven in Providence. And, more important still, what she must have done to so displease the dark gods that she deserves to be weighted with such an officious waste of hide and bone and sinew. Her bad eye weeps, and she wipes the tears away.


  “Yes,” she sighs. “The lesson at hand.” And the ghoul draws a deep breath, filling her lungs with air that smells and tastes and knows of the subtle complexities of mere human death, the turning of great stone wheels upon the infinite axis of time, the sugar-sweet reek of loss and forgetfulness and regret, slow rot and embalming and scurrying black beetles. Above, the storm reminds her that summer has finally given way to autumn, the orangebrowngolden season of harvest, of reaping, of closing doors and grinning pumpkins, and if her kind ever had a season in this world, it would be autumn. She makes a tight fist and squeezes until her claws draw claret droplets of blood; then Madam Terpsichore opens her left hand and holds it out for all to see.

  “We play so desperately at being fearsome things,” she says, and her sooty lips curl back in an expression that is not nearly so kind as a smile, but still something more charitable than a snarl or a grimace. One of the changelings coughs then, the same girl who sneezed a few seconds before, a pretty, ginger-haired girl who has chosen for herself the name of Sparrow Spooner, a name she borrowed from a tombstone, as has always been the custom of the stolen ones, the Children of the Cuckoo.

  “Take strength, child,” Madam Terpsichore tells Sparrow Spooner, and the ghul offers her bleeding hand to the girl. “Warm yourself against the cold and the wet and what’s to come.”

  Sparrow Spooner hesitates, glancing anxiously from Madam Terpsichore to the faces of the other students. She can see that some of them are jealous of her, and some are frightened for her, and some are hardly paying any mind at all. A pup named Consequence rolls his yellow eyes, and a boy who hasn’t yet taken a name sticks out his tongue at her. She turns back to the ghoul, not pretending that she has a choice, and crawls on her hands and knees until she’s kneeling in front of Madam Terpsichore’s stool.