job offer

But before she could pull the trigger, Deirdre hissed, and a flickering blade swept up and struck Murphy across the face. She screamed and recoiled as the blade continued, an S-shaped cut that missed Murphy's throat by a finger's breadth and sliced through the strap that held the P-90 on her body. The weapon tumbled into the water.
"Bitch!" Murphy snarled, one side of her face a sheet of blood. She tried to reach for her pistol-in its shoulder holster, beneath her harness, beneath her coat. It might as well have been on the surface of the moon.
"Murph!" I said. I twisted my shoulders and thrust the end of Fidelacchius to within reach of her hand.
Murphy's fingers closed on the hilt of the holy blade.
She drew it maybe an inch from the scabbard.
White light blinded me. Blinded Deirdre. Blinded Murphy. Blinded Thomas. Blinded everyone.
"No!" Deirdre screamed, utter despair and terror in her voice. "No, no, no!"
The pressure on my ankles vanished, and I heard the Denarian splash into the water.
Murphy released the hilt of the sword. The light died. It took maybe half a minute before I could see anything else. Thomas recovered faster, of course, and by that time he had us both back onto the deck of the Water Beetle. There was no evidence of Deirdre anywhere, and the two boatloads of soldier boys were hightailing it away as fast as they could go.
Murphy, bleeding from a cut running parallel to her right eyebrow all the way into her hairline, was staring in shock at me and at the sword. "What the fuck was that?"
I slipped the sword off my shoulder. I felt really tired. I hurt everywhere. "Offhand," I mumbled, "I'd say it was a job offer."
"We've got to move before we get carried onto the reef," Thomas muttered. He hurried off, pirate style. He looked good doing it. Of course. He doesn't even moisturize.
Murphy stared at the sword for a second more. Then she looked at me, and her bloody face went tight with concern. "Jesus, Harry." She moved to the side of my wounded leg and helped support my weight as I hobbled into the ship's cabin. "Come on. Let's get you warmed up."
"Well?" I asked her as she helped me. "How 'bout it? I got this sword that needs somebody to use it."
She sat me down on one of the bench seats in the ship's cabin. She looked at the sword for a moment, seriously. Then she shook her head and said quietly, "I've got a job."
I smiled faintly and closed my eyes. "I thought you'd say that."


Small Favor Chapter 45, Page 388-389