“Don’t blaspheme,” the Angel said. She could feel herself blushing. “I—” She paused. She couldn’t say, I’m sorry. “I grew up in a very religious home.”

Lonnegan snorted, not in an unfriendly manner. “So did I. And look how I turned out. I drink and I smoke pot—it’s true what they say; cops get the best weed—and I fornicate and I take the pill and I kill people.”

“So do I,” the Angel said. “Except for the drinking. The pot smoking. And taking the pill.”

“Well,” Razor Joan said, “I admit that I’m not big on the drinking part, but if you’re a cop and you want to have a good relationship with your co-workers, you have to drink some. Pot on the other hand—it really makes for some incredible sex.”

The Angel had never talked about this before, but somehow the words came. “Billy and I already have that. I’m not sure I could handle it if it was even more incredible.”

Razor Joan laughed, again, in not an unkind manner. “Why you sweet little Southern thing, you! Well, not so little, obviously.” She paused, then asked wickedly, “I noticed you didn’t deny the fornication part.”

“Well … It was a sudden thing when we met. After all, the apocalypse was just around the corner and I had never…”

“The Apocalypse? Good Lord! Uh—no blasphemy intended. We do have to sit down sometime and talk. Well—I suppose that’s as good a reason as any to lose your virginity … although that Apocalypse never did happen, did it?”

“Of course not,” the Angel said. “We stopped it.”

“We do have to sit down and talk some time,” Lonnegan muttered. “So, not to pry—well, screw it, I am prying. Isn’t it kind of dangerous, you and the mister trying for a baby?”

“Huh?” The Angel was nonplussed.

“Well, you didn’t cop to using birth control and you know what is most likely to happen when two aces have children.”

“Oh.” It was a fact of life for the Angel that she’d lived with for so long that she hardly ever thought of it. And yes, she did know what happened, usually, when aces had children. Genetic laws were such that the odds were that it would die a horrible death. There was a slight chance that it would live as a terribly deformed joker. The possibility that it would draw an ace from the deck of the wild card was infinitesimally small. But still, the Angel had met John Fortune, the son of two aces, who’d been a good boy who turned into a courageous man, so there was always hope. If it were possible that she could bear children.

“Doesn’t apply,” she told Lonnegan. But she wasn’t yet ready to delve deeply into her personal life with a stranger. “I’m sterile.”

Lonnegan realized she’d struck a nerve. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” The Angel saw her flustered for the first time. “They have treatments now—”