Adventure of Dallas Fontaine 2

The service passage spits out two men in charcoal suits, collars neat, eyes flat. They stop cold at the sight of Dallas and Mercer, as if the hallway itself has drawn a line in blood.

Murderbone surges low and silent, cutting toward the nearer man’s legs. Dallas shifts left, keeping the banquet hall behind him and the enforcers boxed in by the doorway.

Dallas fires first. The shot cracks the passage open, one enforcer jerking back into the frame while the other reaches for his holster and loses the race to Murderbone’s teeth and weight.

The surviving cleaner stumbles, trapped between Dallas’s gun and the dog’s grip, while the corridor beyond yaws with fresh footsteps and the faint, sharp click of someone drawing near from deeper inside the venue.

Dallas catches the glint of a heavy, industrial deadbolt mechanism recessed into the steel frame of the service door, its manual lever still set to the open position.

Dallas slams the deadbolt lever down. The steel bar bites home with a hard clang, and the service door shudders in its frame.

Mercer flinches at the doorway, trapped between Dallas and the passage. Murderbone snaps his head toward the noise outside, hackles rising.

A heavy impact jars the other side of the door, then another, as if boots are changing direction in the corridor.

The deadbolt holds. Beyond it, footsteps surge past the threshold and keep going toward the foundation, while the first clean hit rattles the frame and leaves fresh splinters at the latch.

Dallas keeps the lever pinned with one hand while the other stays steady at the lock. The deadbolt holds. The corridor noise shifts, then thins, like the men outside are choosing speed over the door.

Murderbone slips through the service gap and vanishes into the passage, low and silent.

A muffled yelp cuts off ahead of him, followed by hurried boots retreating toward the foundation.

Mercer stares at Dallas, pale and shaking. The look on his face says he understands the turn, the enforcers are not coming back for him.

Murderbone returns with a torn strip of catering cloth in his teeth, dropped beside a grimy Harbor Unit badge that must have been clipped to one of the runners.

From beyond the door, the footsteps keep moving away, straight toward the wedding foundation.

Dallas lifts the revolver and lets Mercer hear the warning first. The shot cracks inside the banquet hall, and Mercer’s head snaps back as he drops out of frame.

Mercer hits the floor hard, going still beside the splintered doorframe. The grimy Harbor Unit badge near the threshold skitters once, then rests against the torn catering cloth.

Murderbone freezes at the opening, then turns at once toward the service passage, ears pinned forward.

From beyond the deadbolt, the retreating boots do not stop. They thin out, then fade toward the wedding foundation below.

Dallas steps over Mercer and moves for the service door. Murderbone is already clearing the gap ahead of him, nose low, ready to run the tunnel line.

A dull thud carries up from beneath the hall, then another, as if someone below is working fast under the guests. The passage ahead is clear for the moment, but the foundation is not.

Dallas slides the deadbolt deeper, and the service door answers with a hard metallic clack. The splintered frame holds. Murderbone plants himself at the threshold, then surges forward at Dallas’s signal, nose dropping to the floorboards.

Dallas kneels by the warped seam and works his fingers under the trim. A loose access panel gives under pressure, exposing a narrow drop into the crawlspace beneath the banquet floor.

Below, a flashlight beam jitters through dust. Someone is moving fast, and the sound of tools scraping timber cuts up through the opening.

Dallas looks down and catches fresh chalk arrows on the joists, angled toward the foundation line. The route is no longer a rumor. It is a working path.

Murderbone growls once at the gap, then snaps his attention toward the lower passage, body coiled to lunge if anything comes up.

Dallas drops through the opening, coat flashing once in the dim light, and lands hard in the cramped crawlspace. Dust jumps off the joists as his boots find timber and then settle under him.

Above him, the banquet hall becomes a tight rectangle of light. Murderbone stays at the lip of the hatch, braced and listening, while the deadbolt and Mercer vanish behind the edge of the floor.

The passage below is narrow enough to force a crouch. Chalk arrows streak the beams ahead, and fresh scrape marks cut toward the foundation line under the guests.

A figure is already there, half seen through slats and dust, crawling fast with a tool bag dragging behind one hand. He freezes when Dallas lands below him.

The cleaner lunges forward instead of back, shoving his shoulder into the timber and ripping open a working gap toward the foundation cavity.

Dallas hits the line before he can vanish, and the crawlspace turns into a choke point, with the cleaner pinned between him and the broken route under the hall.

Dallas fires twice in the cramped dark. The cleaner jerks as the rounds hit, tool bag spinning free into the dust.

He drops to one knee in the same motion, coat bunching under him, revolver steady on the gap in the timber.

Blood spatters the beam, and the cleaner slumps sideways, one hand still clawing at the broken opening toward the foundation.

Murderbone growls from the hatch above, hackles raised, nose locked on the tunnel air.

From deeper under the hall, a second set of hurried steps scrapes wood and dirt, moving fast toward the same breach.