(Hiatus) Ghosts of You (CaitVi//Paranormal AU)

Chapter Five

"Vi, on your left!" I barked, blood dripping from a deep cut in my cheek as I aimed my rifle for the umpteeth time and fired, finally hitting the mark of the Basilisk's good eye. The serpentine monster roared even louder, it's tail whipping about in a frenzy. Vi dodged the barbed tip at my shouted instruction, then slammed a heavy metal gauntlet down into said barb, crushing it between her fingers.

The gargantuan snake did not appreciate such a gesture. It swiveled its head around towards my wife with an enraged hiss, the blind and bloodied eyes staring vainly into her head.

Vi was angry. Fury flushed her cheeks, and the gauntlet-clad hand that held the crushed bard dripped a vile green venom. Worry flashed through me that it might hurt her skin, but as long as it didn't get into a wound...

She sucked in a slow breath and quietly shuffled to the side, the snakes head now looking towards empty woodland. At least she still had enough brain to remember it could now only rely on its sense of hearing. I caught her eye, pointing my gun up at the Basilisk and using my free hand to sign.

'I need its mouth open.'

This was the risky part. Cold sweat already slid down my back.

Vi let out a roar from where she stood, only a few yards from the monster and directly to its right. The Basilisk, which had already been coiling to strike where it thought Vi had been placed, seemed to physically flinch, a thunderous hiss erupting from its cavernous throat as it changed directions with abrupt force and sprang forward.

Right at my wife.

I couldn't stop myself. I screamed. Burning terror swamped me, even when this was my idea, even when I knew Vi could handle herself, even when the love of my life caught the snake's monstrous mouth as it made to swallow her whole, only to start choking on the metal fist she shoved into its throat.

I would never get used to this.

One shot. That's all I had. I aimed at the naked teeth, I breathed, I swallowed the bile on my tongue.

The sharp snap of a bullet through one of the Basilisk's fangs rang through my ears, and I swept forward in a trance. Someone was screaming in anger. My throat burned, like it was me, but I ignored it and snatched the bone, swinging it down as Vi twisted with precision to slam the monster on its back and bare the soft scales along its throat.

The Basilisk shrieked and writhed and died in a growing pool of its own venom and rancid blood, the monster's fang buried deep. Thank the Gods, and good riddance.

My vision tunneled, and I slumped, hands on my knees as I sucked in heaving breaths. My rifle lay discarded by my feet. Vi was talking to me, her body and mind alive, her eyes concerned. My own drooped, bones weary. The sound of a body dropping to the monster-slick ground reached my ears a second too late, and I wish I could've slapped the darkness as it ate me away.

I hate this profession.

Y'all I swear
Marching band is eating me alive