NealC
"Changes", by Jim Butcher
She’d already moved her hand halfway to the sword. As I touched her, I felt the violent strength of her own will to defy the immortal power brought against us, and her hand flashed up to the hilt of Fidelacchius and drew the katana from its plain scabbard. 

White light like nothing that ancient stadium had ever seen erupted from the sword’s blade, a bright agony that reminded me intensely of the crystalline plain. Howls of pain rose from around us, but were drowned by Murphy’s sudden, silvery cry, her voice swelling throughout the stadium and ringing off the vaults of the sky: 

“False gods!” she cried, her blue eyes blazing as she stared at the Red King and the Lords of Outer Night. “Pretenders! Usurpers of truth! Destroyers of faith, of families, of lives, of children! For your crimes against the peoples of the world, now will you answer! Your time has come! Face judgment Almighty!” 

I think I was the only one close enough to see the shock in her eyes, and I realized that it wasn’t Murphy speaking the words— the voice of the archangel was speaking them through her.

White light from the sword flowed down and over her, and her garments literally transformed, as if that light had flowed into them, become a part of them, turning night to day, black to white. She staggered to one knee and looked up, her jaw set in stubborn determination, her teeth bared, her blue eyes, through the distortion, blazing like fire in defiance of thirteen dark gods—and with one of the most powerful spirits I’d ever met gathered around her head in a glowing golden halo.

Then she swept her sword in an arc, slashing the very air in front of us in a single, whistling stroke. 

And the will of the Red King vanished. 

Gone.


 "Changes" 12th novel of the "Dresden Files" series, by Jim Butcher
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Apr 9, 2018 11:47 PM