walked five short steps and took a reading, walked five more, took a reading, leaving us behind, the stiffness of his spine communicating how unhappy he was, but he didn’t persist in his disagreement.
FireWind and I followed up to and through the gate. A hundred yards beyond the gate, I bent to the ground and touched a blade of a weed. I yanked my hand away. “Death and decay energies,” I said to my boss. “A little stronger.” Yeah. This was the place.
It took another half hour of careful approach, with readings to both sides, before we reached the shed. By then I was shaking and cold and miserable and wanted to throw up from the stress and the death and decay on my fingers and crawling up my arm.
The shed door was latched with a simple padlock-style hatch, the kind with a metal loop you could hook a lock through, but this one was secured with a leather thong. It was drawn tight, knotted in a Spanish bowline, a knot taught by churchmen to their sons.
FireWind glanced at Occam, who gave a quick nod. Occam put the psy-meter 2.0 on the ground and drew his weapon, holding it down beside his leg as he moved in a crab step around the building. FireWind inspected the door, and the wood to either side, then bent to shine a light around the threshold. He was looking for traps, which did nothing to improve my shakes, and made me realize that I was in no condition to help should this be a ruse or an ambush. I pulled the potted plant closer into my abdomen, feeling the pot’s edge grind against my rooty belly. Stuck my burned fingers into the soil. I didn’t feel it when they touched the soil, which seemed very bad.
Occam reappeared on the other side and gave a stiff, sharp nod.
FireWind lifted a pants leg, exposing a leather sheath strapped there. From it, he pulled a knife, which shocked me. I was pretty sure that eight-inch blades were against regs. Occam joined him at the door. FireWind jutted his chin to Occam, who leaned close to the doorjamb, out of the way but close enough to provide cover. With a swift downward motion, FireWind sliced the leather latch and kicked open the door. Occam ducked inside and called, “Clear,” before stepping back out.
FireWind pulled sky blue P3Es from his gobag and we put on booties, gloves, and masks before we went in. Electric lights came on, illuminating the interior. I followed last, the overheated air still escaping with a chemical stench, the place feeling like an oven and stinking like a commercial soap maker.
The inside of the shed was in little better shape than the outside, with a deeply stained concrete floor, a dilapidated sofa, electric lights, and two large steel cylinders, standing upright, reflecting light from the overhead bulbs and the open doorway. One of the round contraptions was a good four and a half feet high and that much around; the other was a third that size; and both were older than I had thought at first glance, corroded and spotted with filth around the seals.
“What are they?” FireWind asked of the steel devices. It sounded like a rhetorical question, but I knew the answer.
I frowned, not liking the fact that I was about to pull on information I knew from my church background. Not that this had anything to do with the church. I hoped. “They’re commercial-sized cookers. Well, technically they’re called fully jacketed stationary kettles.” I pulled up the info on my cell to refresh my memory. “You can poach, boil, sauté, or steam for canning, making soups, barbecue sauce, whatever, in large batches. The whole thing is on a mechanism that allows it to tilt for easy pouring.” I patted the large one and bent over to see the gas burner, which was off. The stench in the room was making my eyes water. “The big one is still hot,” I said, “and the goop at the seal says that whatever was cooking is still inside. This one holds a hundred gallons.”
“Are they expensive?” Occam asked, a strange look on his face.
“The big one sells new for between sixteen and thirty thousand, depending on the extras.”
“Dollars?” FireWind said, startled.
“Dollars. The little one holds six gallons and sells for closer to five.” I patted it too, but it was ambient temp in the overheated shed. I stepped back to the door and breathed in