BACKTRACKER by Milo Fowler (e book reader txt) 📕

"Watch your back, holy man!" the Gatekeeper shrilledafter him, the screeching voice echoing from all sides. "Your god can'tsee you down here!"

The Master sees all things. Even me, stainedby the blood of men I have slain this night.

Cade would not allow himself to imagine what his bare feet werepassing over and slipping through as he moved along the abandoned rails. He hadbeen down here once before, but that had been long ago and from a differententry point, a different station. There had been electricity and lights backthen, spare as they were. But he had seen how these vacant stretches of tunnelwere used in between derelict subway cars: for dumping waste in all its forms.Hence the smell, which wafted up and out of the station, all the way backtoward the steps from the NewCity sidewalk where whiskers of caution tape clungto cold concrete walls.

Seconds passed. Minutes, ten then twenty. By all appearances, hewas alone—but Cade knew appearances were deceptive by nature.

He was being followed, and it wouldn't be long before he wasconfronted by the nativesof this subterranean realm. Rumor had it theysharpened their teeth into fangs and enjoyed feasting on human flesh. Otherssaid they were some sort of bizarre murder cult that never left this dark world they had fashionedfor themselves. Silently, they stalked him, making presumptions as to hispurpose while they decided what to do with him.They would not care that he was in search of a friend. It would not matter tothem. Friendship meant very little Underground.

"He who carries the sword will die by the sword." Ahushed voice rushed past him, there and then gone, moving with as much stealth as he did.

Cade slowed his pace to a walk. He drew the blade and kept ithidden in a fold of his robe.

"My kingdom is not of this world." Another voice passedhim by like a ghost.

Cade halted, peering into the darkness, but no matter how hestrained and blinked, he could not see. He had never experienced any place soimpenetrably black, had never felt so blind as when he was Underground.

"If my kingdom were of this world, then would myservant fight." Yet another voice came and went.

The scriptures. They quotedthe holy scriptures, these strange voices. What sort of freaks were they?

"Who are you?" Cade's voice echoed.

Silence swallowed time and space. Seconds passed, minutes, but hedid not move, did not proceed on his course through the tunnel. He waited. Hispatience knew no bounds. He would wait until they revealed themselves to him.As they had followed him, they would have done the same with Irena. Theywould know where she was. And if they had harmed her in any way—

I will repay.

This too was from the holy scriptures—Vengeance is mine, saiththe Master—but the context was wrong. Perhaps the Gatekeeper had beenright. Am I making my own hell? Would the Master forgive him for what hehad done? For what he had yet to do?

All that mattered was finding Irena.

"You come into my house as a robber and a thief to steal whatis not yours and bring death to my children?"

This time, the voice—a different one, not a whisper but a deep andresonant baritone—did not move on. It remained in one place, to the left side of Cade.

"I come only in search of my friend. I intend no disrespect.I mean no harm."

This was another world. Cade had crossed it once but hadn'tlingered for fear of what it would do to him, transform him into. But perhapsit already had its effect on him long ago, a time that was difficult toremember clearly. The blade he carried—

He was no holy man. Far from it.

"You step blindly through the black, yet you are notafraid." A woman's lilting voice came from behind him now, yet with nosound of movement. "How can that be?"

"I am looking for my friend."

Silence swallowed his echo.

"Is that who the sword's for?" Another voice, quiet but severe, from a meter offto the right.

Theyhad him surrounded. He was at their mercy, unlikely as it was that he wouldfind any here.

"I am her protector." Cade let the fold of his robe slipto the side, and he gripped the kodachi in one hand, bladepointed at the ground. "I will not leave this place without her."

"Even if it should cost you your very life?" This voicecame from the throat of a man who had screamed it raw. "Even if you shoulddie before you were ever to know what became of her?"

Cade judged their distance. He could strike them down where theystood, if they remained rooted. Unlikely. For all he knew, they were drifting silentlyaround him, and there could be others among them who had not spoken.Nevertheless, he stood ready, his senses attuned to what little he couldperceive in the dark, every muscle ready tospring into action.

"I will find her," he said. "She could not havegone far."

"But does she want to be found? That is the question.Perhaps, like her father, she wishes to be invisible.Underground, where NewCity's troubles cannot find her. Where she can forget theinsanity of life on the Link."

Cade frowned. "Tell me who you are."

"We are like you in many ways," came the man's voice athis right. "We too follow the Way. But we do so without the use of weaponsstained by the blood of mortal men."

Believers?

"Judge not," Cade returned. Lest ye be judged.

"Careful of that plank in your own eye, friend," camethe woman's voice at his back. "You have been both judge and executionerthis night, from what we can see."

Cade turned his head to gaze blindly over his shoulder. "Praythen that my work is done."

"Threats will not aid you in your search," said thehoarse voice.

"Will you, then? Will you tell me where she is?" Cadeclosed his eyes and listened for their movements. Nothing. They were ghosts,haunting him in the dark.

"If you can answer one question, we will help you."

Cade nodded. "Ask it."

"Tell us: Who is the love of her life, this woman that youseek. Who is it that holds her heart?"

"Her husband," Cade said. "Harold Muldoon."

A deafening quiet followed, broken only by