I helped mop the floor, not out of guilt for making Sally drop the coffee or an urge to help my new “mom” clean, but simple self-interest. I needed another espresso before I was up to telling the truth. Any truth.

Sally delivered a cup and a question. “So, you work for God?”

I sipped my hot black confidence-builder before replying. “Gods, plural, and most of them less pleasant than the one who brought us together. No names you’d be familiar with, although it’s a safe bet they’ve played the role in your world as well. The thing is, I shouldn’t even be able to say that much, whether I’m retired or still on active duty, which means that something really scr- odd is going on.”

Sally smiled, just a little too sweetly. “So, what exactly did you do for these gods? Run a lemonade stand?”

I shut her down with a look as black as my coffee. “I’m sure you have tales of divine messengers, muses, tricksters, assassins, and temptresses; I specialized in that last role, and I was the best, until I fu- made a mistake. One we are not going to discuss tonight.”

Sally opened her mouth to ask the obvious question, so I skipped ahead. “No, I was not a cute little six-year-old girl with glasses. I was the woman who walked into a party alone and walked out with your husband. And if you ever got him back, he’d been thoroughly inspired.”

“Huh; that sounds like our space program. Sixteen divorces on the team and somehow we still landed on the moon ten years early. Nobody ever knew what happened to the secretary all the engineers were fighting over; she just disappeared one day.”

Oops, I had been to her world; I knew my work. Fortunately, she didn’t. “Right, things like that. The Powers don’t necessarily agree on means and ends, and we usually have no idea whether we’re making things better or worse, but I didn’t really care. I was designed to turn boys into men and men into lapdogs, and I loved my work.”

A glance down at my current body was accompanied by another bitter swallow. “I’m a good ten years away from my usual methods, and I’ve never needed a fallback plan before. Which means that I have no idea how to deal with an evil mind-controlling bitch-witch that has her hooks in my best friend.”

A smile twitched into existence over the rim of Sally’s coffee cup. “You mean first friend, don’t you? I think you’ve been lonely for a very long time.”

For the record, I do not blubber. The sudden urge to throw myself into Sally’s arms and dissolve into a puddle of sniffles and tears was just this body’s reaction to stress, and I successfully fought it down. “Stop that; this is grown-up talk.”

“Yes, it is, and I think it’s more relevant than you realize. I didn’t know I’d be raising an older woman, but you definitely need a mother in your life. As does Kit, which helps explain how quickly you’ve bonded with her.”

The urge to blubber was rising again, like three-day-old sushi. I really needed to get this body under control so I could solve this problem and… then what, exactly? Get my old job back and leave? Get my old body back and retire to a beach villa with hot and cold running boy-toys? Without Kit, or Sally?

Shit.

The boss really got me good. I’d been here less than 24 hours, and I wanted to stay.