Playing With Fire by Christine Pope

opened on his balcony. The skies had begun to darken, and at first he thought he’d misjudged the time and that the sun had started to set. Then he looked up.
    Threatening brown fingers of smoke stretched westward, curling over the city. Frowning, Samael opened the sliding door and stepped outside. The familiar scent of burning brush met his nostrils, and he looked to the east. This had to be something new, something closer than the fire in the hills above Glendale.  
    His condo was about three or four miles as the crow flies from the Hollywood sign. On clear days he could see it easily, along with the shining white dome of the Griffith Observatory. Now, however, a cloud of brown haze blocked even his demon-sharp vision, and an ominous plume of smoke obscured the famous building.
    He’d seen too many human artifacts destroyed throughout the millennia to be too distraught over the loss of a single structure, no matter how legendary it might be. Likewise for the hillsides around the Observatory. Brush burned in California. That was just the way of things.  
    He stood there for a moment, watching the smoke and hearing the distant wail of sirens. Then a rush of heat seemed to explode through all his veins. Golden light seared his vision.
    Go to her! thundered a voice Samael distantly realized was Uriel’s. Go to her now, before all is lost!
    At first Samael couldn’t understand what Uriel meant. Then the fire ebbed from his veins as quickly as it had come, bringing with it cold realization. Go to her . Go to Felicia, who had said she often went to Griffith Park to paint. Who had probably gone there to seek what solace she could, following her conversation with Samael.
    No time to think, and no time to do this the human way. He already stood on the balcony; it was the work of less than a second to assume his demon form and push himself up and away. Anyone on the street below would have seen only a passing shadow overhead; perhaps they might have felt an odd sensation of disquiet without knowing where it had come from.  
    He used the drifting clouds of smoke as extra cover. L.A.’s streets flickered beneath him through the haze as powerful wings drove him forward. The scent of smoke grew stronger as he flew over Hollywood and crossed the 101 Freeway. Sirens screamed in his ears, and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles glowed like embers through the gray-brown haze, a haze which increased tenfold as he crossed Los Feliz and the pricey neighborhoods that backed up against the open hillsides surrounding the Observatory. Two or three of those multi-million-dollar homes were already ablaze.
    Somehow he felt her, felt the same magnetic draw he would toward a doomed soul. Well, not quite the same. He knew if she perished in the fire, her soul would not be his to claim. But somehow he still knew where to find her, knew where she was hidden in the firestorm below.
    He couldn’t go to her in his human shape. He could tell she was still alive, but only a rescue by air was feasible at this point. The flames licked up through the dry brush on all sides; even the natural firebreaks afforded by the hiking trails weren’t enough to keep the hungry fires at bay.
    So be it. Whatever punishment he might face for going to her as he was now, in his demon form seemed mild compared to the thought of her dying in the conflagration below. He had seen such deaths before. They were never easy.
    He took a breath, and began his descent.

    • • •

    Really brilliant idea, Felicia. I’m guessing it ranks right up there with the guy who thought the Titanic had enough lifeboats.
    The sarcastic tone of her interior voice couldn’t mask the terror she felt rising in her. Somehow, she knew she was going to die here.  
    The fire had pushed her back up the road, having already consumed the little promontory where she’d been painting. Her easel and canvas were long gone, but she guessed their loss was the least of her problems.
    How could it have