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The closer she got to the building, the hotter the necklace got. It didn't burn her skin though. She could feel the heat, but it didn't hurt. It was kind of comforting, like maybe her dad was telling her she was on the right track. Getting hotter, like in the children's game.

This time a new scent mixed with the others. Floating above the mold and cyanide was... no way, now she really was crazy. She swore she smelled cinnamon, the spicy kind that went with hot tea on cold winter days. These weren't the kinds of things a fire investigator uncovered at a building fire. A campfire maybe, but not a warehouse.

Seriously. There was something wrong with her brain. Her nose had never led her astray before. Her father had taught her to use her all of senses. He called it her superpower. She had more than her nose. Nataly closed her eyes for a second and opened her senses up, letting the sounds, scents, feel of the air around her, and even the flavor of fire come to her.

There it was. Something she couldn't see but could feel. This fire had a lack of residual heat. Why wasn't this place still steaming? This fire had the same M.O. as the others, the same scent. But there was definitely something different to this one. The extra scent, the way the fire had been put out much more easily and a lot faster than the other two, and...

Wait. A black shadowy figure swished through the side of her peripheral vision. Someone was in the building. Someone who shouldn't be there. Not because they were in danger. But because they weren't. Whoever was in here wasn't running from the fire, he was hiding from her.

She glanced over her shoulder toward the group of guys. She should call in some backup before heading inside. This could be the arsonist. It probably was. She wasn't a hero, and she wasn't stupid. “Hey, Alex. Can you grab a couple guys and come over here? I see something I want to get a closer look at and could use some backup.”

“One sec, hun.” Alex gave her a little chin jerk and waved over a couple of the guys. Because he was actually a good guy, she wasn't going to get mad that he'd called her the pet name even though she'd asked him not to about a billion times. At least he felt slightly bad when she reminded him. Not like the rest of the men at the station. Whatever, she was used to it.

The black shape moved through the building again, but this time, he was up in the rafters. How the hell had he gotten up there? She stepped through the front entrance and into a puddle of some kind of oily goo. She crouched down to get a closer look at the substance. It was shiny like oil but looked extra sticky. The cyanide and mold smell drifted up to her.

Hmm. She didn't remember seeing anything like this at the other scenes, but she'd definitely had this smell in her nose at those fires. Nat grabbed an evidence swab and swiped it through the goop. The second the soft tip touched the black stuff, the goo changed and the wet surface dried out and appeared to turn to ash. Some of it blew away and the rest disintegrated further, disappearing into the cement floor of the warehouse.

That wasn't normal. She'd never seen anything that behaved that way. A cotton swab wouldn't create that kind of chemical reaction in any substance she knew. Before the memory of the evidence faded too, she quickly grabbed her sketch book and drew the rough lines of the shape and where the spot had been placed. The evidence was gone, but she measured the distance from the door and a support wall. There were a dozen more spots like it, so she took out her camera and snapped some photos as quickly as she could.

“Nat, we're here. You got a clear path for us yet?” Alex shouted from the doorway.

“No.” She held up a finger. “Stay there. I just need your eyes for a minute. Can you look around up in the rafters? I thought I saw something up there.”

Alex shined his big light in a long slow search pattern across the ceiling. Nat followed the light's path, anxiously waiting for it to hit the corner she thought she'd seen the movement in. If the arsonist was still here, she didn't expect him to show his face, but they might get lucky.

“There. Alex, go back, by that rafter.” She could swear she saw eyes. Red eyes. That had to be a reflection of some sort. She refused to let her imagination get the better of her. If there were a pair of eyes here, they were either animal or human. Not vampire or demon. Silly.

Alex dropped the light to the wall and then the floor. “Sorry, doll. I don't know what you're looking at. There's nothing up there.”

There was. Nataly felt it under skin. The knowledge that another being was here tingled under her skin. But since Alex hadn't seen anything, she questioned herself. Had she seen red, glowing eyes? That sounded crazy.

“Okay. Thanks, man. I'll finish making the path for the CSI team. I'm officially declaring this arson.” The FBI was going to be breathing down her neck tomorrow. She had a good twelve hours until they showed up. That was plenty of time to do a whole lot of investigating. Not.

Something else was going on with this new fire that made her think she could find a break in the case tonight. Nataly glanced back toward where she'd seen those eyes. There was nothing there now. If she could get closer maybe she'd find the clue she needed. The firefighters had cleared the building so she could move about freely. That was a hella long climb up to that landing. The direct route was a ladder that went through a series of catwalks, and if she was honest with herself, she wasn't sure her butt would fit through those small spaces.

She had the stamina, no problem. She also had her mother's Latin ass. J-Lo had nothing on Nataly. Only one way to find out. If she got stuck, there was a whole truckload of firefighters outside to come in and rescue her. She would die of embarrassment if they had to, but they would save her if she needed help.

It took a minute to pick her way across the floor, trying to avoid stepping in any of the oily evidence. When she got to the ladder, it didn't look near as steady as from across the room. She'd just die if those fireman really did have to save her ass. Maybe this wasn't the best idea. She had a ton of evidence and clues here on the ground floor. She hadn't even identified an accelerant yet, and there certainly had to be one.

She glanced up the ladder one more time, and damn it, there was something glowing up there. There could be a small fire still burning or hot coals. Weird. The burn pattern didn't reach the catwalks.

Crap. Now she had to go up there. This had better be a good freaking clue. Nataly put one foot on the highest rung she could reach and pulled herself up. The farther up she got, the brighter the light got, and the hotter the necklace at her throat burned. She ignored the heat except for the way she felt like it was leading her in the right direction, and continued toward the light. Her butt fit right through that entry to the catwalk too, thank you very much.

She got up on the walkway and the light was gone. Just gone. Even if it was a fire, there would still be residual light if the flames had gone out. Coals didn't simply go dark that fast. Slowly she worked her way toward where the light had been.

Two red eyes blinked open and stared out of the darkness right at her. Her heart jumped right out of chest and then straight down into the pits of her stomach. A screech wrenched through the air, and a black, slithery lizard thing with wings popped out of the darkness and spit a fireball at her face.

“What the—“ She jumped back and slammed against the catwalk railing. The whole metal contraption rattled beneath her, and she screamed as it partially collapsed. Nataly scrambled back, trying to find a hold. The lizard spread its wings and jumped for her.

She was going to die. Not in a fire, but from a hallucination. More fire shot out of its mouth. She scrunched her eyes shut tight, threw her arms over her face, and waited for the searing pain.

And waited.

She must already be dead. Huh. She hadn't felt a thing. Nataly peeked one eye open. That eye didn't believe what it saw, so she opened the other one.

A great big red dragon had the lizard thing in its great talons and ripped it in half. More lizards dropped out of the darkest corners of the warehouse and right toward the dragon. It blew out a swath of fiery breath, eviscerating the lizards and turning them into oily smears across the floors and walls.

Yeah. She was definitely dead. But this was probably not heaven. Judging by the number of flames, hell was a lot more likely.