There was a very human sigh of relief when Aaron took over and made sure that she wasn't lighting anything on fire with her in direct contact. She would have, if the situation had called for it. She was devoted to the job, to saving Aaron. The smells coming from the creatures was overwhelming, and it didn't make anything better that he was now waving a limb in her face telling her to set it ablaze. Zera imagined that the stench from it was going to be even worse, but she did it anyway.
It caught like nothing she'd ever seen before, the fire seemed attracted to it somehow. Zera didn't think that a pile of dry leaves and paper would have lit up so fast. And she was right, the smell was downright ungodly.
As soon as she could, the vampire moved out from under the werewolf to move toward the throne. She had to relight the lighter, but it was a fast process. Zera didn't even care about the babything still standing on it. She hoped it burst into flame as easily as the limb had. To give herself a little more time, Zera lit the leg closest to her. It didn't go up quite as easy, but there was enough goo on it to act as fuel.
---
The smells were awful, and the fire made them worse. They were Death with a capital D. Aaron didn't want to put his vampire partner through any of it; he'd be hard pressed to say he'd put his worst enemy through it.
The lit arm was hurled into the mass of bodies, living and dead, that were coming for them. He hoped that it would take to whatever lay under the rotting skin and spread. It did, and the cries from the living were sickening. The undead started feasting on the living as they burned, as if this would subdue the flames.
The wolf thought he had seen it all; he thought he'd experienced almost every sick and twisted thing possible. He just didn't get these sort of cases, not with the newbies. With a deep breath that stung from all the vileness in the air, he started moving again.
The woman he was sure he'd have to fight off so that Zera could light the throne didn't do a thing. Not at first. Then she started to move when the throne lit. The creature hadn't noticed anything, and before Aaron could do anything to stop her, the woman threw herself on the "toddler." At first the woman seemed to be protecting the creature from the fire that fed upon the throne, but soon the screeching from the creature that seemed to control everything told a darker story, or perhaps heroic. The woman held onto the toddler, and she muttered the words she'd said before: "Release by fire." She added as the flames grew, engulfing the thing she held in her arms, "Release us all by fire."
---
Zera stepped back. The fire caught too fast for her liking. Only tainted things caught fire that fast. She wanted no part of it. There was slight horror and slight relief when the one that seemed to be the mother went into the flames on her own, and nothing else had to be done. She was doubly glad that the child had been taken in with her. The last thing that the vampire wanted to do was have to get near enough to touch it, the smell was so awful.
She was sure that if the higher ups had known just what this case would involve, she would not have been thrown into it. This was way above her experience level. She had a lot of questions. Most of them revolving around what the fuck was going on. What these creatures were. How he'd known. Was it just the smell? Zera hoped that she never smelled anything so awful again in her life. No matter how long she lived.
It was more likely than not, though, working for the Tower, that she would.
Zera hated that thought.
She watched the scene, the burning, her eyes flitting over the other creatures, waiting to see what was going to happen. She moved closer to Aaron, just barely resisting the urge to grab onto his hand. Now was not the time.