The Smoky Corridor

109

McNulty scampered down the steep staircase.

When he reached his killing pit, he took the tunnel to his left.

Followed it to where it would enter the steamship boiler room.

But the master was not in that room.

He was down below.

In the gold vault.

McNulty was too tall to fit inside the furnace cubbyhole and take the ladder down to the treasure chamber. He would need to find a different way to reach his master.

He followed the tunnel into the darkness.

His nostrils flared as he attempted to pick up the master’s scent.

It was no good. He kept running. Deeper. Downhill. Dark.

“McNulty!”

His master’s voice!

Behind an earthen wall.

It did not matter.

McNulty was strong. He ripped through the dirt and the rock and the mortar. The wall crumbled. Now he was in a tiny sealed room. Many glass jars lined the shelves.

“McNulty!”

The master was close. The other side of another wall. McNulty needed to break through. The next wall was thick. A vault wall. Cinder blocks. Bricks.

“McNulty!”

He saw a steel support pillar in the center of the room. Grunting, he hoisted it up out of the ground, taking out a chunk of the ceiling, sending dirt and debris showering all around him.

“McNulty!”

“Coming, master!”

He used the steel girder like a battering ram and slammed and slammed and slammed it against the treasure vault wall until the cement blocks broke free.

Through the hole in the wall, he saw his master, who was now a girl, standing in a chamber, surrounded by shimmering gold bricks.

“There you are, McNulty. What in blazes took you so long?”