The Man From ACE (Sorcerer Spy) by Raymond CM & Barbant LE

Author:Raymond, CM & Barbant, LE
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Smoke and Steel Press
Published: 2023-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 43

An SFM is a creature unlike any other in the ACE catalog of known Teras. They’re extremely rare, so much so that every few centuries a well-respected ACE investigator would hypothesize that they didn’t really exist. Most new recruits treated them like bugbears and bogeymen. Kap himself had only one encounter with an SFM, but that had been decades ago.

The shelf life of Teras depended on their kind. Vampires could live several centuries, assuming they maintained access to healthy bloodlines. Werewolves routinely held off the gray until their nineties. He had no idea of Alpha’s age—a common trait of the few Dragonnaires he’d ever encountered. But the average Gremlin only lived to be fifty, assuming they didn’t accidentally blow themselves up in some sort of prank war.

But SFMs had no known end. They lived for centuries, millennia even, without aging. They were strong and extremely difficult to kill, even with the best spells and TMs, and they blended in perfectly well with the Human population...except for the giant wings sprouting from their backs.

The common name for an SFM was Angel.

The attack came in from the ceiling, broken bits of old timber falling down around Kap as the Angel plummeted feet first like a cannonball. Kap barely missed getting turned into an accordion.

The Angel was huge, six and a half feet tall. His snow-white wings stood in contrast to his toned olive arms and long, dark hair. Swiping at Kap, he used that wingspan to great effect. Each smack of the downy white wings was like getting punched by a velvet-gloved fist. Kap stepped back, slicing with his knife, trading hits for blood. But it didn’t slow the Angel.

Kap raced through his tactical choices. He knew that SFM were more dangerous out in the open, where their reach was most advantageous and when they could alternate hand-to-hand with swooping dive-bomb attacks. Here in the barn, the Angel was limited. But those limits weren’t stopping his enthusiasm for taking Kap’s head off.

Kap decided to lean into distance fighting.

He threw his knife again and again, using his telepetry to return it to his hand each time. The Angel was shirtless, which meant that even though he was fast enough to dodge Kap’s kill shots, he was beginning to sport dozens of cuts along his chest, arms, and wings.

Despite their longevity, nothing was truly immortal. Even an Angel could bleed out on a dusty barn floor. But so could Kap.

He kept at his strategy, relieved at its relative success, until the Onis got back into the game.

A hand the size of a baseball mitt wrapped around his ankle and flung Kap. The Angel took advantage of the situation and charged.

Kap spun to his feet knowing that a boxing match with this Angel would be bad news, especially with the Onis at his back. So, he made a desperate play. He swung the knife down hard, lodging it into the Oni’s leathery hand. She released her grip just in time for Kap to lunge at the Angel, tackling it around the waste.

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