It took a lot less time for her to do it than it would’ve for me. I had the good goddamned sense to back off when the lion looked like it was ready for lunch, and I wasn’t really even surprised when it—she—started talking in my head. I sent the sword home, watched the lion gorge herself on smelly demon meat, and nearly jumped out of my skin when a third voice intruded on our little conversation: “And heah Ah thought Ah’d be coumin’ to sayve d’daye.”

It took me a couple seconds to get past the rich rolling deliciousness of a Cajun accent so thick it sounded like it’d been poured on with molasses and honey. In that time, Jane-Beast went from sated contented cat to wary prickly lion. I held a finger up, like that would possibly stop her if she decided to make a second lunch out of the new arrival, and turned to see what this Lower World had wrought.

It had wrought the most gorgeous John Henry I’d ever laid eyes on. The guy looked like he’d earned every one of his muscles working the railroad, and the Lower World’s red sunlight just sank into skin so black he couldn’t possibly have had any crackers in his woodpile. He stood about six steps away, and even so I had to raise my eyes to meet his. That never happened. He was NBA tall, had shoulders a little wider than God’s, and wore a wife-beater that showed off beautiful arms and emphasized an equally well-muscled chest. His jeans had blown-out knees and his feet were bare, toes dug into the Lower World’s cool dirt. I had the idea he was introducing himself to it in the same way I had. Almost the same way. He hadn’t cut his foot open to bleed on the ground. Just as well. I was too busy gawking to think about healing foot injuries.

“You are?” he said. Aaah, really, the consonants all swallowed by Southern gentility.