Dinkie Clueford was an arsonist. It was how he made his living, and he was good at his profession. He had a reputation to uphold, and he made top dollar. Not a single fire that he had started had failed to earn an insurance check. Dinkie had a degree in physics, and his former college roommate had been majoring in law enforcement, specializing in arson investigation.
      Luck and skill made Dinkie the best in his class. He never used the standard tactics that resulted in detection. He had learned from Sammy what would tip the investigator's decision to arson, and he found other ways to strike the match. He was a top grade expert in fire-starting accidents.
      Faulty or insufficient wiring was always a good practice, as were chemical accidents. Granulated chlorine was his favorite, and its industrial use as a floor cleaner and disinfectant, as well as a pool chlorinator made its presence quite plausible. Simply add any oil, like a bottle of pine oil cleanser on the self above, accidentally being knocked over into the chlorine. Forty seconds later, whoosh! It was very effective, chalked up to ignorance and sloppy habits, and the insurance check was in the mail, and so was his employer's check.
      His college chemistry course on thermoreactive oxidation and his physics courses on emf and thermodynamics made Dinkie a pyrotechnical wizard that baffled the investigators without ever failing. He enjoyed the challenge. He considered himself among the lucky few veterans who enjoyed the profession.

      Dinkie was at the Crosstown Storage facility on a Tuesday night, studying a section of electrical conduit that had been pulled loose, then shabbily replaced when the fuel lines for the new crane's generator had been installed. All he needed now was a heavy object to fall and rupture both tubes. A convenient stack of crates some thirty feet tall was ten feet from the wall where the target lay.
      Dinkie was tickled at such convenience and disappointed that the challenge had not been any tougher. Easy money had it compensations for the disappointment, though. All he had to do was figure how to weaken the near side of the bottom crate to where it would drop the stack into the wall. There was not enough room on that side for a fork lift accident.
      But there was a dozen twelve foot sections of six inch steel pipe stored below the conduit and fuel line. And the short platform that held the sections of pipe was nailed together, rather than bolted, and made out of his favorite substance, wood. Wood at the hot spot left no clues, since ash couldn't talk nearly as well as other materials.
      A test kick showed him that the legs of the platform were overloaded with the weight of the pipe. Rope and fork-lift would topple it with no problem. Twenty minutes later, the pipe was on the floor, the stack of crates toppled, and the fuel line was dispensing low grade gasoline. The conduit had snapped, but the spark never occurred.
      Dinkie left nothing to chance. He headed to the breaker box to turn the breaker back on and start the blaze. He'd have his safe distance and a fire at the same time. He felt quite proud of himself, and anticipated spending the money.
      Dinkie heard footsteps, and the thought of his paycheck found jeopardy. He was in no hurry to trip the breaker, since the more fuel out of the line, the better for wide scale coverage. But Dinkie held pride that his fires never trapped anyone to their death. Plus he was sly enough never to be seen. He held still and the footsteps stopped. The crates made it difficult to pinpoint the direction of the person he was avoiding.
      He fought to control and silenced his breathing, listening for signs. He turned around to look around the corner and came face to face with a very attractive woman. He flinched, but she closed the distance and kissed him. His lips tingled like the first kiss he had ever been given that rated as a serious lip massage, and not just a peck.
      Dinkie found himself unable to resist, readily putting himself into it. He thought how crazy he was, being as he started getting light-headed. The light-headedness increased. The woman was easily the most attractive he had ever kissed, and the circumstance were certainly the oddest. He saw stars before his eyes and attributed it to the intense pleasure that he felt. He passed out and slid to the floor. The woman never broke off the kiss, following him to the floor. Several minutes later, she rose off of her knees and stretched.
      "Ah. Such a fine meal. So alive, so invigorating. A girl doesn't find many like him."
      She looked at her arms and saw the glow of health. The barely noticeable whiteness had faded. She estimated that it would be a week before she need feed again.
      "If only they were all like you, my sweet," she said to Dinkie's shriveling corpse, "life would be so easy to sustain."
      She found a mirror and checked her hair. Finding it not mussed enough to need fussing, she straightened her blouse and headed for the exit. She approached Dinkie's accident and detoured to avoid the spreading fuel spill. She passed between crates, careful not to snag her clothing. Two rows over, the floor was still dry. She walked down the aisle past several crates, when a man jumped out to confront her.
      "A snack." she thought, and turned on her charm. The man responded and moved to her for the kiss. She giggled as their lips met.
      But the draw of energy that she expected didn't occur. Instead, she was being drained. She tried to pull free, but her lips were locked to his, as so many men's had been locked to hers. "What are you?" she managed through pressed lips.
      "Don't struggle, my dear. I'm an incubus. I'm just going to take some of your energy." she heard in her mind.
      "You idiot! I'm a succubus!" she screamed back in response.
      He then tried to disengage, but was unable to free himself.
      Once her dwindling energy had equalized with his growing energy, there began a mutual transfer. It started off small, then grew. They struggled to free themselves violently, disregarding the physical consequences. To get free was all that mattered. The exchange grew to a ravenous vortex. The crates around them began to give off a thin smoke as the wood began to darken from charring.
      Their struggles increased proportionally to the smoke, but nothing broke the lip lock. The crates darkened considerably. The paint beneath them on the floor began to peel from the heat they radiated.
      The fuel spill finally emerged from beneath the crate next to them, and Dinkie had his job completed for him. Had he still been alive, he would have bragged about his ingenuity at finding the perfect match.