“Fuego!” shouted someone on the walls—and for a second I was hit with a little sting of insult. Someone was shouting “fuego” and it wasn’t me.
While I was feeling irrational pique, guns started barking, and they aimed at me first. Bullets rang sharply as they hit my armor, rebounding from it and barely leaving a mark. It was like getting hit with small hailstones: uncomfortable but not really dangerous—unless one of them managed a head shot.

The shout comes from the walls, the Grey council arrives into the yard... I think it was in fact the mercs leader ordering them to open fire.

In spanish, at least here in Mexico, we use "fuego" and "disparen" (fire and shoot) but it is kind of stupid for a group of trained mercs to shout instead of silently signaling it.

Didn't like it. I felt like I was reading a very bad super Harry fic where he goes into a shopping spree and we get to see him and his lady friend try many different outfits on. Was that much description necessary? I would have prefered for Jim to just say "she had me try on a lot of stupid things until she decided the kind of armor wore by Cortez worked better"... Besides the whole reaction to Susan's clothing was stupid.

 

I dunno...after so many pages of frenetic action and revealing of secrets, it was kind of good to have a breather. I think it was there to let the reader sort of let out their breath, in preparation for the climax at Chichen Itza.

 

I don't really have a problem with Uriel helping Harry out through the sword. Uriel has been suggested to be a good guy (better than you would expect really with those dead children) and he really seemed to feel bad about being unable to help Harry when Harry begged for help.

But why Murphy? Why not Sanya? I mean it seems a bit unfair that the total sword newbie who has already rejected the sword once and who plans to reject it again gets all the super-power boosts and direct assistance, when Sanya who has singlehandedly been doing the work of three knights for years now for no reason other than pure selflessness gets left in the dirt. Thats what bugged me a bit about this.

 

Because HR doesn't wine and dine people that already work for them, they wine and dine the people vacillating over whether they should sign up.

 

^ That and Sanya has, as you say, been doing it for years. He doesn't need the assistance, whereas Murphy's only held a sword once before in her life, as far as we know.

 

Source?? Please??

 

This may be true, and shinysavage also has a point. Sanya may not need the help.

But if Murphy can do that with help...Sanya would utterly dominate. Maybe I just like Sanya better than Murphy, but I'm with Datakim on that. It was an irk.

And yeah, it looks like Eb has some sort of limit to the Law-breaking he can do. I guess the price for that power is that the Blackstaff slowly poisons you with dark magic.

 

Uhhh What ???

Someone here said that that would be a cool way for it to open but as far as I know Butcher hasn't said anything about the next book except for its title.

 

Ah, I'd forgotten that. She could well be a secret ninja in her spare time then, yes. Although a friend of mine has a similar display; he wouldn't know how to use it (beyond the basic, pointy-end-away stuff, obviously). It is mentioned in the context of decorating, after all.

 

Murphy is also a black-belt in Aikido. I'm no expert on Aikido, but every black belt I know in other martial arts knows how to use a katana.

 

Seriously? Most martial arts are unarmed arts. Especially the most popular ones.

 

Yea, but a lot of them contain some form of weapons training as well, at least at the Dojo I studied at for a few years. It might have just been the sensei's preference instead of an actual part of the art, but every black belt there knew at the very least the basics of using a katana.

 

Ummm, no.

http://forums.darklordpotter.net/showpost.php?p=358571&postcount=9

In other words it was Brown's wouldn't it be cool if ...

The post that midknight made links to an interview that makes no mention of that what so ever. All he says is that he wanted to name the next book 'Dead' and the publishers said no, so they called it "Ghost Story".

Edit: WTF double post...

 

Fidelacchius isn't actually a katana: it's a cane-sword of an asian design.

And almost every martial art will train you in the use of weapons, but especially in the west this is falling out of practice in most schools because most people pursue it only as a recreational exercise.

 

Something by Butcher in his forums. to the question: Can Murphy actually use the katana set she has on her mantle?

 

I dont think its Murphy that is actually using the sword. Its either Bob, as a spirit of intellect he must know something about using a sword. Or its the actual sword doing it.

Im sorry but im a heavy practitioner of both okinawan karate and aikido and although I know the basics of using a katana as would most black belts, I couldn't do what she was doing in a million years against regular folks. You would need a lot of experience in kendo and a bit of a background in fencing to start to pull something like that off.

 

I agree with Jamie Brooks on that. While Murphy may be good enough to teach Aikido, which includes the use of Jo, I don't think she is good enough to use a normal katana, but the Sword is far from normal.

However, I don't think that Bob was helping her since he must have been using most of his power to counter the will of the Lord of the Outer Night. And I don't believe that the Sword alone can use her: Free will is a restraint on the power of the Almighty, the White God.

But that what must people forget is the fact that the sword are powered by Faith and that power can protected it's wielder against supernatural being and even harm them (like in Storm Front against Bianca or in Fool Moon against the Loup-garou) or even the playfield like when Harry try to kill Nicodemus at the end of Small Favor.

And the Knight of the Cross does not have the same level of power. Michael is clearly more powerful than Sanya because of his Faith and love for his family and Shiro was able to fight Nicodemus to a standstill while Michael don’t believe himself to be able to do the same thing. It may be similar with Murphy whose faith is more defined than Sanya’s and her fidelity (?) to her principle greater than Sanya’s Hope.