M. K. Hobson - The Native Star

Praise for
The Native Star

For Nora

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A book is like a pearl. The author supplies the grit in the middle, but it is friends and colleagues who add the thin bright layers that make it shine.

(Following this metaphor through, one might suppose they do this because they find the author and her grit so damned irritatingbut lets leave such hobgoblinish consistency to littler minds, shall we?)

There are many writers who have given freely of their time (and nacre) to help me make this book smooth and fine, including Sara Mueller, David D. Levine, Sandi Gray, Robin Catesby, Jim Fiscus, Douglas Watson, John Bunnell, Denny Bershaw, Simone Cooper, Francine Taylor, George Walker, and the late Chris Bunch. To these comrades-in-arms, I offer my humble thanks.

Thanks as well to my fierce and fabulous agent, Ginger Clark, who contributed at least three layers of opalescence before she even took me on as a client. Thanks to the splendid Juliet Ulman (who picked up the book) and the creative team at Spectra (who ran with it): my brilliant editor, Anne Groell, copy editor Faren Bachelis, David Pomerico, and everyone else whose names I either dont know, cant spell, or am afraid to say three times out loud.

Additionally, I am deeply grateful to the kindred spirits who have bolstered my sanity or encouraged my insanity at critical moments: Douglas Lain, Ellen Datlow, Shawna McCarthy, Jessica Reisman, A. M. Dellamonica, Camille Alexa, Heidi Lampietti (and Kiri), Madeleine Robins, Nancy Jane Moore, Serge Maillioux, Karen Berry, and the entire graduating class of Clarion West 2005.

And finally, of course, thanks to my family: Dan and Nora, Mom and Dad, Rachel and Albert. Its from them that I got the grit to begin with.

Contents

Prologue

Five loud, hard, sharp crashes. Someone was knockingno, not knocking, rather pounding at the door of Mr. Everdene Baughs house on Church Street.

It was well past midnight. A violent tempest of bird-shot rain and screaming windthe biggest storm to hit Charleston in a decadewas raging outside. Anarchy and insolence , Baugh fumed as he fumbled his way down the dark, narrow stairs, wool-stockinged feet sliding on bare wood. Every day he was unpleasantly surprised at how much closer to savagery the world had drifted.

Baugh threw open his door with the intention of telling the pounders to go to Hell and exactly how to get there. But when he saw that it was a detachment of Union soldiers on his doorstep, their rifles gleaming, the words froze in his mouth. Before the soldiers stood a hulking officer with dripping muttonchops, who seemed hardly to notice the rain sluicing down on him from the broken gutters above.

Captain John Caul, the man introduced himself curtly, not bothering to touch the brim of his hat. Youre Baugh, of E. W. Baugh and Company?

Baugh clutched the edge of the door, knuckles white. Shermans bloody march was only a few months in the past. The ashes of Columbia had barely cooled, and the once-fertile fields of South Carolina were barren, ruined by the despoiling northern Warlock squadrons who had sown every field with black sorcerers salt. And since Lincolns assassination, the Yankee garrisons had been itching for blood.

Baugh prayed they werent here for his.

Your firm operated a warehouse before the recent conflicts, Caul said. His voice was strangely flat, as if he was attempting to make each word balance precisely with the next. I have been informed that you might be willing to let it. Ive come on behalf of an associate who wishes a viewing.

You want me to take you round to see the warehouse? Baugh blinked in astonishment. But but its

haunted, Caul finished for him, with a distinct sneer. Yes. I know all about that. Get dressed. My associate is waiting.

The walk to the warehouse was brief but no less unpleasant for being so. The driving rain was cold and stinging, and Baugh had to lean forward against the hard wind to make headway. Better, though, to lean forward into the wind than back against the rifle that one of Cauls men was jabbing between his shoulder blades.

When they reached the warehouse, Baugh saw a black carriage waiting in the street. Cauls associate.

Itll be just a moment, Baugh said apologetically as he went to the great rusting padlock. He unlocked it carefully; then, when no one was looking, he placed his hand on the doors wooden frame.

Ghost, he whispered. Its me.

There was a soft, cool exhalation from within the building, a distant moaning of recognition.

Feeling the presence of his ghost cheered Baugh immeasurably. The ghost was the most useful sorcellement hed ever purchased. During the recent unpleasantness, its talent for striking terror into the hearts of the living had been the only thing that kept the Union armies from commandeering his warehouse. Baugh glanced back at the ruffians in blue whod escorted him here. It would be awfully satisfying to instruct the ghost to send them packing, too.

However, Captain Caul had used the word let. And the word let implied money. And Baugh, like every other hungry Confederate son, very much needed money.

Your services wont be required, he whispered, patting the door frame tenderly. Not yet, anyway. But stand ready in case I need you. A creaking sound of understanding and compliance came in reply.

If these Yankees wanted to let his warehouse, hed take their money. Otherwise hed call his haunt down on them quicker than rain off a tin roof.

Baugh made a great show of removing the padlock, as if hed been fiddling with it the whole time. Only when the doors of the warehouse were opened did Cauls associate, a man in a shining beaver top hat, suffer himself to be handed down from his carriage by a soggy sergeant.

And it was not until they were inside, and one of Cauls soldiers had kindled a lamp, that Baugh got a good look at the mysterious stranger. The mans limbs seemed to have been molded precisely to fit his elegantly tailored chamois trousers and fashionably cut coat. His fingers sparkled with gem-set gold rings, he wore a neat Vandyke, and his eyes were an alarming shade of peacock blue.

Monsieur Rene, Caul said. Comte dArtaud.

Pleased to meet you, Baugh said. Artaud didnt even look in his direction. Instead, the Frenchman walked around the building slowly, hands loosely clasped behind his back. He looked up at the cobwebbed rafters, then at the dirty windows. He squinted at a sudden flash of lightning.