Power flared in him, through him, in earth-rich colors and in a way I’d never seen before. It was like his toes, dug into the earth, absorbed its very strength, and the top of his head, way high up there in the sky—even to my tall perspective—let it flow on out. The reverse happened too, and his fingertips took in the quiet animistic strength of still air and released it as casually, and left the impression that if a hurricane blew his way, it, too, would wash right through him. I had no doubt at all that he could capture and use it for the working of magic, but it didn’t stay in him the way it stayed in me, and it came to him far, far more naturally than it did to the witches I knew. There was no need for a guiding deity, with him. The power just ran through him like a river. Witty as ever, I said, “Wow. What are you?”

He shrugged big broad beautiful shoulders. The outrageousness of his accent started wearing off, becoming easier for me to understand, though he still sounded as old-school Cajun as anything I’d ever heard. “A conduit, mebbe. A gateway. You?”

“A shaman.” I wasn’t going to answer for Jane, even though Lazarus looked at her, too. “A gateway, huh. Are you what brought us here? I mean, not here-here, I did that,” I said with a wave at the Lower World, “but to the Middle World we just left? Because it’s not Jane’s world and it’s sure not mine.”

“Does it matter?” Jane growled. “Stinky is dead. Let’s go home.”

“Are you kidding? Of course it matters. People don’t just go flying off to different universes without a reason. Or they don’t in my world, anyway. So whatever brought us here has got to be impor—”

I stopped talking then, because Lazarus opened his hands wide and became a man-shaped gateway right back to the Middle World.