I woke up to the feeling of unfamiliar hands running down my bare chest, startling me into action as they groped down towards long disused parts of my anatomy. Kicking a warm, nubile, and willing woman out of my bed is not something I'm particularly practiced in doing but I'm a fast learner.

"Woah! Woah! Single occupancy bed lady," I yelped, pushing the carmel-skinned girl onto the floor with my right hand as I flailed my way into a sitting position. The silk sheets shimmered in the yellow light of burning braziers.

My heart raced as I remembered where I was, placing gaudy walls and ceilings of Heka's -turned my- palatial chambers.

She hit the floor hard, not resisting me in the slightest. Rolling with the motion of my shove she spun up and into a kneeling crouch, keeping her eyes to the floor. This was not the first time she'd been hit. Her breath hitched in resignation as her lips, painted dark with shades of henna, quivered slightly. She made a sound that was almost speech before thinking better of herself and looking back to the floor, too terrified to meet my eyes.

It took me a while to collect my whits, balancing the act of not looking at her very naked body with trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I breathed in a few times, steadying myself before turning my head to look at her. I was not looking at her generous curves, or the intricate pattern of tattoos that ran the length of her body. I was not staring at the glimmering piercings running down her form connected by lengths of chain that drew attention to the most intimate parts of her. I was not taking note of her visible physical arousal.

I really wasn't.

What I was looking at were the wet trails of tears forming in her eyes as she hid her face between fingers steepled in supplication. Give me fire, brimstone and demons any day over five seconds with a crying woman. God help me, I have a streak of chivalry as wide as Lake Erie.

Wrapping myself in one of my sheets to conserve what was left of my modesty I got out of bed, reaching out to touch the woman's arm. She did not flinch as I touched her but there was a sudden stiffness to her, the expectation of pain.

She looked up from her cupped hands, not daring to stare higher than my chin as she said in a voice of whispered fear, "Has this one displeased you my lord-" The beginning of 'heka' came to her lips as she quickly corrected herself, "-Ha'ri? This one can get another. Whatever my lord Warden wishes is his own to have."

An echo of Heka's twisted tastes whispered in the back of my thoughts, once again affirming my choice to fry the misogynist son of a bitch. The girl twitched as my eyes flared in fury. Damn it, I would have to keep my anger in check now that I had a freaking light-brite in my skull. I spoke in what I sincerely hoped would sound like soothing tone in spite of the metallic timbre, patting her arm re-assuringly. "I don't need anything from you. And I definitely don't want you offering me your body to someone who doesn't even know your name."

I might as well have slapped her. She did not even bother to hide her tears as she said, "I am Muminah - Your high priestess."

"My what?" My brain short-circuited. Oh hell, of course I had a high priestess. They thought I was a god. I probably had an entire church by now.

She dropped to the ground, holding her breasts to her knees as she stretched her hands forward in supplication, giving me a good view of coiled snakes wrapped into knots working their way up that had been branded into her spine. "Forgive me my lord Warden. I did not mean to presume - but the former high priestesses self-immolated to follow Heka into the afterlife."

"She what?" I blurted out. I hadn't meant to shout, but who does that? Seriously?

"Most of the faith is in shambles. The council of nine locked themselves in the crematory, and I wouldn't be surprised if more did not end their lives for fear of what comes with the death of a god." She dared to raise her eyes, looking as high as my lips as she spoke in a voice of conviction. "They need their new god. They need his wisdom and communion to guide their way through the shadows."

I whistled through my teeth, "Lady, you are barking up the wrong tree on this one."

"Please," She begged me, reaching out to my leg but not daring to touch it. "Please help us, give us your guidance. Give us your blessing so that we might pray to your perfection."

I knelt down, cupping her chin in my hand as I forced her to look up into my face. I looked at her, taking care to avoid the first tugs of a soul gaze as I spoke in my most wizardly paternal tone. "Muminah, I am not perfect. I am not a god. I'm a Wizard. I'm a good one at that, but I am not worthy of your prayer. I'm flattered, but you do not need to do anything to prove yourself to me. Trust me, you're just as blessed when you don't pray as when you do."

She bit her lip, as though considering if this were some sort of test. "But - "

"But nothing," I interjected. "I don't want people praying to me. Want to prove to me that you're a good person? Act like a good person. Want to prove to me that you're honest? Don't lie. I don't want or need slaves, sacrifices, prayer, or suicides - especially not suicides - to prove yourself to me. Actions speak louder than words."

"I - I understand," Muminah replied in a tone that could have indicated anything but comprehension. "I shall see to informing the priestesses of this then."

"You do that," I replied, smiling at her. "And please, do not crawl into my bed without asking."

"I will obey your wishes my lord Warden," The priestess replied, calmer than before. "Forgive my ignorance."

"It's alright," I replied, looking around the room as the first pangs of hunger twanged in my stomach. "Tell you what. Find Amun and tell him I'm hungry and all is forgiven."

"Right away my Lord Warden," The woman stood up as though hit by lightning, bowing her shaved head as she excused herself from the room, generous hips swaying temptingly as she whisked her way out.

"You should have allowed her to commune with you my host," Lasciel's shadow crooned into my ear as phantom limbs curled round my neck. "It is simpler to just maintain the old traditions than it will be to convince them of the truth."

"Get off me Lash," I snarled, batting at the illusion with the hand not holding up my sheet. The ghostly angel hovered away from me, floating across my bed with a cat like look of predatory satisfaction on her perfect features. She swayed back and forth above my bed, stretching in a way that emphasized the assets beneath her tunic, "I'm not going to ask anyone to worship me."

"She only understood a third of what you said as you intended it, my Host. The language of the usurpers is not as adept at conveying meaning as your own native tongue. You do not give suggestions in it, only orders." She sighed. "Even now she believes that the gospel of her new god is that you should worship him through noble deeds and honest acts."

"Come again?" I growled, glaring at the fallen's shadow.

"Translation is an Art, not a science my Host. I am translating what you say as close to how you say it. But there is literally no way to say 'don't pray' in the language of the ursurpers. The closest I could manage is something closer to 'a different form of worship', but it really doesn't properly convey the sentiment." She sighed at my exasperation, falling to the black sheets of my bed. "I did not invent the infernal language my Host. The usurpers did, and they had no intention of allowing their followers to rebel. It's one of the reasons they try to suppress the native languages of their conquered people, it allows them to control the flow of ideas and knowledge. You can't say what can not be said."

"I like these usurpers less and less by the minute." I sighed. "Now why are you not in my head."

"I wanted to come out and talk with you. It's boring to just watch all the time without saying or doing anything." Lash whined in a decidedly less-than-angelic way

"Harry, after all this time - all that I've done for you - you don't trust me?" Lash smiled, flashing a mouth full of dazzlingly white teeth.

"Not as far as I can throw you." I snorted.

"Even after I -" Lash's voice hitched, her lips tightening in anger. "You stupid son of a - you haven't spared a moment to think about it have you?"

"About what?" I sighed. "Between killing a god and the existence of space ships I'm sort of busy at the moment."

In an instant Lasciel's shadow was in front of me, nostrils flaring as she poked her finger into my chest, "I gave up everything for you. Everything!"

Oh hell's bells, I hadn't really thought about it but, yeah, there was no way that Lasciel would tolerate her shadow disobeying her like that. If I ever decided to call the coin Lash was up a creek without a paddle. Fallen Angels weren't really the forgiving type, "You let me kill myself. You – you can't go back, can you?

"Go back? You think I give a damn about going back? We're long past that." Lash snarled before slapping me across the face and disappearing into a puff of smoke. "I let you kill us both you ungrateful heathen. I. Died. For. You."

"Lash?" I asked the empty room, "Lash, ugh, I didn't mean to - shit - I'm sorry."

Lasciel's shadow did not answer, though she did send a twinge of displeasure in my direction. She was in no mood to speak with me for some time to come. I didn't press the matter. Disowned shadow of a fallen angel or not, she was a woman. Only an idiot actively sought out a woman who was pissed off at you for good reason. The logic was doubly relevant for women capable of hitting me with a telepathic whammy of illusionary flesh-eating scarabs.

I was saved the aggravation of negotiating with a scorned angel by the arrival of my breakfast.

The eunuch Amun carried a heaping platter of food into the room, slicing some odd looking fruit into a bowl of spiced meat before pouring a generous measure of crimson wine into a tall flagon. He flashed me a raggedy mouth full of teeth, bowing deeply as he said, "I have brought you your favorite foods from your former life, my dearest Lord Warden the Reborn."

Heka's taste in food left much to be desired, even if the portions were generous. It was enough food for five Harrys, including a roasted six legged creature who'd apparently been stuffed with a mix of small snakes and wild birds. I didn't think I was brave enough to even consider tackling the bowl of cold soup with live fish wriggling at the bottom or what I seriously suspected was a plate of jellied goat eyes.

I smiled at the Eunuch, patting him on the shoulder. "Thank you Amun. I think I'll stick with the fruit for now."

"My Lord Warden must eat," He looked down at the floor, ashamed to have corrected me. "I fear that your flesh may be weakened by your genesis, great as you still are to allow a worm like this one in your presence."

I recognized the tone, it was the sort of twisted appeasement battered wives used to calm their abusive husbands. Amun had reflexively moved his hands to cover his kidneys as he bowed, he was used to being kicked around by Heka. I pretended not to see it, pointing it out would only get me a series of denials and assurances that he "loved his Lord Warden."

I managed to talk Amun out of washing my feet in the basin of perfumed oils next to my bed under the pretense of asking him to get my clothes out of the wardrobe. I wolfed down the bowl of fruit and meat, tossing a jellied eyeball at the caged, carnivorous snake-like something or other staring at me from behind the gilded bars of it's cage.

"Did this guy just read a list of villain habits and think to himself 'yeah I could probably afford that?" I muttered to myself, poking at the six legged creature and considering one of it's many drum-sticks.

"My lord Warden?" Amun poked his head out from my closet.

"It's nothing Amun," I replied, seriously considering the possibility that their might be a tank of sharks with lasers strapped to them somewhere in the bowels of the massive space-ship. "Just thinking."

"Of course my lord Warden," The eunuch replied, wiping at a pudgy cheek with his sleeve. "Does my Lord Warden wish for the Robes of State in Black or Green?"

"Uh, what about the armor?" I interjected, eying the mannequin next to the dresser hopefully. It's angled and jagged plates of armor shimmered in the candle-light, just begging for me to wear it. Ok, so I'm a giant seven year old in a grown man's body. Just let me have my toys!

"My lord Warden, the great lord Sokar has forbidden weapons of any kind at the conference. You are permitted one Lo'tar and a single communication device it would be madness - " The Eunuch actually squawked in horror, slapping his hands over his mouth as he fell to his knees. "I did not mean to question your wisdom."

"Dude – just get up." I sighed, waddling over with the sheet tied round my waist and pulling him to his feet. "You get to tell me when I'm being an idiot. It happens a lot."

"A god is never wrong." Amun replied on reflex, eyes bulging slightly as it clicked in his head that he was correcting one. He was clearly on the verge of a total short-circuit.

"How about pants?" I pointed at the wardrobe in the hopes that Amun's urge to serve his lord Warden was stronger than his fear of being punished.

"Oh!" He blinked, switching back to my egyptian space Alfred. "The red uniform has the most practical pants. Does my lord wish for that?"

"Practical is good," I nodded, putting on my various enchanted jewelery. "Let's go with that."

I was not, of course, permitted to put the clothing on by myself. A god apparently could rule the laws of heaven and earth but could not be trusted to button up his own fly. Amun had precisely no intention of allowing me to taint myself with such menial work. I could not help but feel a bit childish as the substantially smaller man stood on a chair to be able to pull the red silk garment over my head, before fastening an elaborate vest across my chest.

It became immediately clear to me why Heka had enlisted a servant to dress him as Amun proceeded to pull a brocaded jacket and some sort of elaborate waist skirting of shimmering material from the dresser, weaving through them with a braided rope of gold threads and fastening them in place with jeweled pins.

Dancing patterns of coiled snakes weaved their way up the sides of me, black embroidered hieroglyphics offsetting the shimmering white symbol of coiled snakes on my breast, the symbol of Heka. I was probably wearing more wealth in jewelery now than I had ever previously seen in my entire life. It was hard not to salivate at the robin's egg sized sapphires laced into the belted holster for a large velvet pocket.

I tried not to think about how I looked like an extra from a Bollywood production of "The King and I" as Amun grudgingly gave me my own leather duster and grey cloak instead of the ornate fur cloak and crimson turban still in the cupboard.

"Clothing is clothing Dresden," I reminded myself, keenly aware that Murphy would die of laughter if she ever saw me wearing this. Well, she would once she'd finished taking pictures for posterity.

"Your first prime is on the bridge preparing your status report for you my Lord Warden," Amun interrupted my introspection, straightening my cloak and replacing it's pin with an emerald scarab the size of my fist as he tossed away the simple silver fastening in disgust.

"Well then, let's not keep him waiting." I replied, straightening the shield bracelet under my sleeve. The dangling charms had never been intended to deal with complex embroidery, they kept catching on the fabric of my sleeves.

Amun nodded, leading me out of my chambers and into the ship. It did not escape my notice that thirty Jaffa were hidden in the alcoves leading to my room, each of them standing at the ready to do grievous harm to anyone not supposed to have access to my room. For a man who professed his immortality, Heka had gone to great lengths to ensure he would not be assassinated.

I returned the one fisted salute when offered it, putting my hand over my heart and nodding appreciatively. Jaffa heads poked out of doorways and over railings as I walked past, observing me with undisguised curiosity. I heard the curios murmurs of distant gossip as we passed, the sort of pleasant murmur one might expect from a celebrity or local sports star.

I paused as we crossed the catwalk above a wide gymnasium full of Jaffa soldiers. They stood in long rows, moving in unison with an wizened Jaffa weapons master in an effort to imitate his elegant kata. I could feel the air shifting as several hundred Jaffa breathed in unison, the expulsion of wind at their shout of "Kree" fluttering the edge of my duster.

They weren't fighting as much as they were dancing, a pure yogic act of violence clearly honed over generations. I recognized the predatory grace to it. My brother had the same purity of motion when he fought, powered by his hunger. I don't know how long I watched them for, but I would have gladly watched for hours.

The motion froze in place as the ancient Jaffa's gaze rose, coming to meet my own. He spun mid kata to a kneeling position, holding his staff above his head in a gesture of submission rapidly imitated by all his pupils. I put my hand over my heart in the Jaffa salute I'd been offered so many times already today, to uproarious cheers from the Jaffa warriors below.

"Dre'su'den! Dre'su'den! Dre'su'den the Ha'ri!" They bellowed, beating at their chests and holding their staffs to the sky, each of them trying to be the loudest and most excited.

I saluted again, not quite running across the catwalk to the ring transporter on the other side. The ringing cheers echoed in my ears even as Amun pressed the device upon his wrist, summoning the rings to teleport me to the bridge. A light flashed, the air around me whooshed through the glare and suddenly I was elsewhere.

"You're late boss." Griped a familiar voice. Bob the skull sat on the great throne in the center of the room, propped up on a pile of cushions so that he could examine the holographic display built into the seat. Orange tendrils of light flittered between his eye sockets, intently watching the rapidly streaming images and hieroglyphs. "You slept for eighteen hours."

"Coming back from the dead was more exhausting than I anticipated." I replied, willing my words to be English. "Any trouble with the locals?"

"You're kidding me right?" Bob snorted, following my lead. "They've been falling over each other to have the honor of serving their Lord Warden's – well they can't seem to decide if I'm a lesser god or some sort of bound spirit but they've certainly got the proper respect for their elders."

"I'm surprised you're not cavorting with the priestesses," I looked around the bridge. "It isn't like you to ignore that may naked women."

"This is more important that breasts Harry," Bob replied in a voice of resignation.

I snorted. Bob loved sex, he was obsessed with sex. He never shut up about sex, or how I should be having more of it. Never mind that he was an incorporeal being with no genitals to speak of, nothing was more important to Bob than breasts.

"Ha, ha," Bob's flames rolled in their sockets, "I have millennia of information that is now entirely outdated – not just outdated – wrong. Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is? I'm a spirit of knowledge who has no idea what is going on at all."

"You can work that thing?" I pointed to the computer as the pictures zoomed past.

"Huh? Oh that? Yeah, it's not that hard. Kind of fun really," His teeth rattles as a picture of the ship paused on the screen. "But I'm barely done scratching the surface to all this. You could give me a decade and I'd only be starting to know how much I don't know. So you, Harry, are totally fucked."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence Bob." I sighed. "Really, great pep talk."

"I'm an advisor Saib, not a cheerleader." His jaw quirked up in a passible imitation of a smile, " Though I suppose if you wanted to have the priestesses dress up in skirts and wave pom-poms for you, they'd probably be willing. Boobs harry, a whole tattooed bouncing bunch of them."

Yeah, there was the Bob I knew. "Let's go back to the 'doomed Harry' schtick."

"Oh that," Bob sighed, "It's pretty simple. I know enough to know how screwed I am and you're substantially dumber and illogically compelled to seek out fatal danger. You're like some sort of sarcastic spell-casting lemming at the best of times, now you're in space heading to fight the head of a galactic empire."

I giggled, smiling to myself.

"You aren't listening any more are you?" Bob sighed. "I said the words 'galactic empire' and your brain went straight to Star Wars."

"Yeah," I shrugged. "Can't blame a guy for having taste."

"I'm going to go back to reading information to keep us from both getting killed when you decide to do something stupid and heroic," Bob's eyes flicked, pointing his eye lights behind me. "You should probably see to the Jaffa. There is only so long they can pretend not to be listening to us speak before one of them bursts a vein or something."

The Jaffa were, in fact, listening with wrapped attention to every word we said. Ul'tak and his lieutenants stood around a stone table covered in shimmering holographic images, twirling red and blue patterns dancing across an emerald pattern of stars. But even they seemed to have frozen in mid sentence as I'd started my conversation with bob.

A swarthy lieutenant with a thick mess of braided beard had paused mid way through pointing at something in the holographic display, so entranced by my conversation that he'd not even thought to lower his finger. Ul'tak was luckily less overwhelmed by my presence than his colleges.

Ul'tak sighed in amused irritation, reaching over to gently lower the younger Jaffa's hand as I walked over to the table. "Mar'kek, I believe that you have sufficiently pointed out the moons of Kefn."

He saluted me in the Jaffa, bowing at the waist as he shouted, "Dres'su'den Ha'ri!"

The Jaffa followed suit, saluting and bowing as Ul'tak moved from the head of the table. He nodded towards the place he'd been standing, a raised platform clearly intended for whomever was commanding operations on the ship. I stood on the step, staring at the holographic star-scape, "What is this?"

"These are the holdings of Heka, now the holdings of Ha'ri." Ul'tak nodded. "Nekheb, land where all magics are born, is the barrier between this world and lies beyond but it is only one of many such worlds in which Heka held total dominion."

I stared at the blue sections of space, the possible meaning of the blue sections clicking in my head. "Ul'tak, how many planets are we talking about?"

"You control around fifteen habitable planets across thirty star systems as well as numerous smaller resource rich systems that serve as supply depots and dry docks for your fleet of ships." Ul'tak growled in irritation, starting at the red flashing areas of space. "Or you did until news of your death and rebirth was sent across your realms."

A broad shouldered lieutenant let loose an oath, snarling in fury as he grunted, "Cowards, they deny your the divinity of the lord Warden. They commit heresy of the worst sort."

"They are without the priesthood Ma'kosh," Retorted lankier Jaffa to my right. "Hundreds of our ranks have gone to serve Heka in the next life by their own hands or the hands of his agents. Warden's grace alone that we did not suffer the fate of his truth speakers."

"The speakers of truth are not supposed to outlive their god." Ul'tak's tone hitched, apparently sickened by whatever had happened to them. "His magics unmade them as he was unmade, else his secrets fall into the hands of heretic gods."

"We must assume that failsafes were placed in some of these locations to ensure the loyalty of the Jaffa overseeing them," A truly ancient looking Jaffa wheezed past a dusky mop of whiskered mustache. He wiped at a thick eye patch over the right side of his face. "If the truth speakers had explosives in their spine then we must assume others did as well. For now let's focus on military responses to the outright rebellions."

"The ardent worshipers of Heka will not easily be converted to the worship of the Lord Warden, even if we have seen the truth and light of his divinity," Ul'tak grumbled. "I fear that we are in for a long and bloody civil conflict for conversion. Many human lives will be lost for the greater good."

"Or we could just not convert them," I interjected. "Remember the whole 'I do not need worshippers' thing?"

The Jaffa looked at me in confusion. Ul'tak blinked, "My Lord Warden?"

"Ul'tak, I am not looking for a religion to be based around me. I do not want people praying to me and I sure as shit do not want people forcing others to believe that I am their god." I pointed to the red systems. "What precisely have those people done for you to be preparing an invasion?"

"They have refused to tear down the temples and icons of the dead god," The broad-shouldered Jaffa replied. "My brother Mak'nek has heard word of dissent and doubting the divinity of the newly come god."

"You're going to attack people for saying that I'm not a god?" Lord save us from half your followers. "No - Fuck no - you aren't. In fact you're going to let people worship whomever they damn well please."

"But if people worship other gods they will -" Ul'tak interjected.

"But nothing," I shook my head. "Ul'tak I'm really not into telling other people how to live their lives. Just – you know – let them do their own thing. As long as they aren't hurting anyone else, who cares if they think I'm a god or not?"

Plus, if everything went to plan I'd be back on earth before the weekend. There was no point in them going on some half assed holy war because they'd seen me do some magic. As long as I could keep them from doing something dumb in that time period, it would end up being someone else's problem to deal with crazy space god rules.

"Very well then," Ul'tak nodded slowly. "But may we dispatch forces to quell the riots on the third moon of Nekheb?"

"Yes, but try to end it with the least bloodshed possible," I nodded. "Killing people is an absolute last resort only to be used if someone's life is in jeopardy."

The Jaffa murmured approvingly, nodding to each other. Ul'tak smiled, "It will be my pleasure my lord Warden."

"What about the meeting with Sokar?" I asked, "How long till we reach Delmak?"

"Within the hour my lord Warden." Ul'tak tapped three stones on the table, raising an image of a shimmering world orbited by a cracked and nightmarish moon. "We should be landing on the southern continent near your personal holdings on the planet."

"My personal holdings?" I really needed to ask for a list of properties or something, this was getting to be a running theme.

"A modest estate for one such as yourself my lord, but within walking distance of the place of Sokar." Ul'tak reached for the image, zooming down to a massive series of pyramids in a sprawling metropolis.

"Within marching distance of his barracks you mean, as well as a whole mess of weapons of the gods." Grunted the ancient Jaffa.

Ul'tak ignored the interruption. "We received a transmission from Sokar's forces. We will be allowed to land on the dry dock at your estate, but we will not be permitted to have any Jaffa leave the grounds."

"You mean I'm walking into Sokar's palace alone? Alone at the – wait, conference?" It hadn't really clicked in my head when Amun had been saying it earlier, the clothing had distracted me. "Oh hell, there are going to be gods all over the place at this thing!"

"Any and all who do not wish to be crushed by the armies of Sokar," Ul'tak agreed. "Since the fall of Apophis he has become the uncontested military power in the galaxy. Some five hundred Goa'uld are expected to be at the summit."

Five hundred evil space gods. Fucking fantastic. "I don't suppose I actually want to know what Sokar is the god of do I?"

The ancient Jaffa whooped with laughter. "Paradise is ruled by the devil, my lord Warden. Sokar is the god of hell."

You have got to be kidding me.