“Smitten,” I said brightly, then shook myself. “Uh. I mean. Joanne. I’m Joanne. That’s, um.” I looked at Beast-Jane and decided not to go there. “That’s a cat. And you’re. . . ?” Utterly gorgeous. Physically flawless, with striking African features. The back of my brain reminded me that perfect people usually weren’t human, and that I should probably check the guy’s aura out, but his physicality was so much more interesting I put it off for a minute. I didn’t want to find out he was one of the bad guys. Not yet, anyway.

He grinned. “Lazarus, but you call me Laz, cherie.”

I deflated ever so slightly. Odds of him actually being named John Henry were, of course, astronomically low, but for a brief shining moment there, I’d had hope. “You better call me Jo.” Because while my romantic life was on an upswing, I still didn’t think it would go over well to explain to a boyfriend so new I wasn’t sure I should even use the word yet just why an unutterably gorgeous Southern gentleman was referring to me as cherie. “Lazarus, huh? Only in the South does that name not even cause a blink.”

“Oh, it causes a blink.” Jane stalked up beside me. I squeaked. I hadn’t even heard her change—not that I knew if shapechanging made noise, since I’d never tried listening to myself while I did it—and I certainly hadn’t heard her putting all her leather and guns and shiny silver bits back on.

Lazarus looked at her, all hot and sexy in her leather, and looked at me, considerably less hot and sexy in jeans and a tank-top. His eyebrows rose. “Sisters?”

Jane and I looked at each other and shook our heads in unison. Laz’s eyebrows went higher. “But power, it runs in family, no?”

“Different families,” I said after a minute, then edged three steps back, like that distance would make it impossible for him to hear me mutter, “Lazarus is a worrying name?”

“Anybody who rises from the dead worries me,” Jane muttered back. Since she was the one who came from a world with vampires, I conceded the point instantly and whether I liked it or not, took a good look at Lazarus with the Sight.