The new kid wasn't so bad, if I wanted a partner. Which I didn't. But somebody had to raise him from a pup, and the Chief decided that somebody was me. I had spent a routine patrol day with him tagging along at my heels when the Chief called us in.

"I got a call from the BART police," she said.

I rolled my eyes. Even the local police departments need us to hold their hands through the most minor manifestation. But the subway cops? Well, we could probably bully them into staying out of our way. "What's the deal?" I asked.

"Is it poltergeists?" asked the kid eagerly. He'd dealt with poltergeists before. Thought he was pretty hot shit in the poltergeist department. I tried not to roll my eyes again.

"No, Wayne, it's not poltergeists," said the Chief gently. "There's some stronger manifestation around MacArthur Station. They didn't think much of it when one of the new drivers just sat and waited for fifteen minutes -- figured the new guy didn't have the timing right for transfers. They chewed him out a little bit, but it wasn't during rush hour. No big deal.

"Then it started to happen more. Station delays, brake checks, compulsive track checks when no track checks had been ordered. And then weirder things. Track switches, unexpected direction changes. Complaints of animals on the rails -- and not just kitty cats, either. Then at 5:30 one Friday night one of their most experienced drivers took the Richmond train on the wrong track, up the Pittsburgh/Bay Point line. They got to Pleasant Hill before the passengers and the station agents could convince him he was wrong and get him to see where he was."

The kid pulled a BART map out of his pocket. Me, I already had the route in my head. "That's six stops down the line," he said. "And he'd have to go through the Caldecott Tunnel."

I nodded. "They checked the old guy's system for all the usual?" I asked.

"Yep. No drugs, no alcohol, no nothing. He was just -- bewildered. Publicly, they said he'd be reprimanded. But they sent him over to us first. Gen and Roger determined it was a power manifestation, but they couldn't figure which one. Passed it off to Caroline, and she localized the disturbance to MacArthur Station. Now it's your turn."

"What do we do?" asked the kid, wide-eyed.

"Toni will show you," said the Chief. "Why don't you go make sure all of your supplies are full. I've got a few things to say to Toni."

"Okay," said the kid. I was surprised he didn't skip out of the room. He was just so damned excited.

The Chief watched him go. "You were a kid, too, once."

"I was never like that."

"No," she said. "You never were. That's why I paired you up with Wayne. Figured you could use a little joie de vivre. And he could use a little experience."

"He could use a lot of experience," I grumped. "He could use an Academy, for one thing."

"We don't have enough recruits to form an Academy," said the Chief wearily. "On-the-job training was good enough for you and me. It'll be good enough for him, if you let it."

"All right," I said. "Is that all?"

"Be careful on this one," she said. "There's a bigger power than we're used to here. I have a hunch."

In my previous life, I made fun of my bosses' hunches. But when the Chief feels her thumbs itch, I do an extra warding spell or two. Just in case. I caught up with the kid and had him do the same.

"What do you think we'll be facing?" he asked eagerly.

I shrugged. "An incarnation or two, I think. Maybe some Powers."

"Not --" He tried to look brave. "--demons?"

"If it was demons, we'd be seeing a lot nastier stuff than train mistakes. People would be throwing themselves on the electric rail, knifing each other by the ticket machines, that kind of thing." I looked at him sidelong. "Not that Powers and incarnations are sweetness and light. Don't go into this feeling all snuggly about them just because they're not demons. They don't want to hurt you, but a lot of them they really won't care if they do."

He paced around a little bit. "Do you think I should bring a lot of charms?"

"Just some general ones," I said. "There's no way of telling who or what we're going to get. Look, take a nap, all right? The last train out of MacArthur isn't until quarter to one in the morning. And we don't want a bunch of civilians trying to commute through this if it gets nasty."

"Or even if it doesn't," he said, in a rare display of common sense.

I nodded. "Right. So get some sleep."

"I really don't think I can."

"You have to. Come on, come into the break room and lie down."

"You're going to spell me."

I thought about denying it, but why bother? "Of course I'm going to spell you. And when I'm done, I'm going to spell myself. This is important."

So he grabbed a cot in the break room, and I put him to sleep. I stayed up a little bit after I put him to sleep, though, looking at local phenomenon reports. Fussing. I put a hand on his forehead. It was cool and dry, and he rolled over in his sleep. Poor kid. He deserved better.

I spelled myself, too, and the next thing I knew, it was eleven o'clock, and the kid was blinking at me, mostly awake. We each grabbed a cup of coffee, pulled up our hoods against the rain, and went to meet up with some BART cops. "You've been briefed on the situation?" said the younger of the two.

The kid nodded. The older BART cop and I exchanged sympathetic glances. The BART cops escorted us to the station. The station agent had been warned to expect us. Her eyes got bigger and bigger as we settled in with her in the security booth. The BART cops left as fast as they could.

"Okay, here's the deal," I said. "It's almost midnight, right? At midnight, we're going to set a spell around the station. Everyone else will still be able to get out, but anyone with magic on them will not. We'll watch the gates until the last train has gone. You guys should lock up and go home as usual. We'll jump the gates to let ourselves out when we're done, and we'll take care of any stragglers ourselves."

"Okay," stammered the station agent.

"You don't have any spells on you, do you?" I asked her. "Good-luck charms, voudoun, anything like that? No? How about saint medallions?"

"I'm an atheist," she managed.

I nodded grimly. "Well, good for you. Good luck with that, hope it works out for you."

"Why midnight?" she asked.

"What?"

"Why midnight? Is it, you know, the witching hour, or what?"

I sighed. "Spell takes about twenty minutes to settle in, and we need some cushion time before the last train. Okay?"

"Okay," she said.

"Don't worry," the kid told her with a charming smile. "We've got it covered. It'll all be back to normal soon."

She nodded quickly, but I don't think she was convinced. It's like that for mundanes. The world doesn't ever really go back to normal.

They can all cry me the proverbial river.

The kid and I went to the northeast and southwest corners of the station to prepare the spell. It involved gesturing and muttering, hopping around a little bit, and sprinkling allspice on the pavement. It formed a little reddish brown paste in the damp. Mostly the people around me huddled into their jackets, trying to stay dry, and looked away, but one tiny Asian woman stared at me.

"What are you looking at?" I snarled.

She scuttled away. I met the kid back in the center of the lower level. "I'll stay down here and watch the turnstiles, see if anybody gets caught," I said. "You go upstairs and see if anybody's waiting around or looks like they're settling in. Watch and see who gets off the trains, whether they have an aura about them. Holler if you need me. I'm just down here to make it easier later on."

"What if they already left for the night?" he asked.

"Then we keep coming back earlier and setting the spell earlier," I said. "Don't want to do it that way, and I don't think we'll have to, but if they leave us with no choice, well, we'll handle it."

"What if they just leave for good?"

I shrugged. "Problem solved."

I leaned against the tile wall and watched the turnstiles. I thought I knew the parka-clad figure who tried to exit at 12:24, but it wasn't until she got caught up at the door that I knew for sure.

"...anything else go wrong?" she moaned as I approached.

"Mad?" I called out.

Maudlin Madlyn turned. "Oh, Toni, it's you. It's been so long. Why, the last time I saw you, I think it was years ago. You were the sweetest little witch, and your brother --"

"People change," I said shortly.

Mad's eyes welled up with tears. "I know, isn't it a pity? They're so lovely the way they were. And back in my day --"

"Where's Grief, Mad?" I asked. Maudlin Madlyn is the personification of maudlin, sentimental behavior. The only way I can stand being around her for more than a few minutes is when her cousin, Grief, is with her. Sometimes not even then.

"Oh, she's gone to Arizona for the winter," said Mad. "Not so rainy, warmer. And lots of work to do there. We used to be so close, but she doesn't mind just leaving me alone when there's so much to do. So I try to be brave."

"I'll bet," I said.

"But here --" She sniffled. "Well, San Francisco used to be such a beautiful city, don't you think? And Oakland, so charming and bustling and industrial. But now there's traffic everywhere, oh, and those dreadful young people with their vehicles and their gentrification. I just don't know what to do. I look around and try to see how it used to be."

"That's great, Mad, but --"

"Oh, you're so sweet to say so!"

"Look, we've got some work to do here. Have you seen anyone else around here? Anyone else like you, I mean?"

"I don't think so."

Well, I wasn't counting on it. Mad isn't the most observant being ever, even for an incarnation. "Can you just go into the bathroom or something? Stay out of the way for awhile?"

"I suppose," she said. "I wouldn't want to be any kind of a bother."

Suspicion struck me, a little late. "You haven't been messing with the BART conductors, have you?"

"Oh, dear me, no. That could be dangerous."

"Yeah. Well. Just let me handle it, all right?"

Mad sighed deeply. "All right."

The last trains all left at 12:46, with a great roar and clatter. It was a Tuesday night, so there weren't even very many people coming home from a night of clubbing in the city. Tuesday is a quiet night. I looked around at the station to make sure, but there was nobody else there. I gave the poor station agent a nod and ignored Mad's sighs as she huddled against the wall. I took the escalator stairs two at a time, to the far platform.

The kid had put his hood down, since he was on the covered part of the platform. His black hair ruffled in a wind I could barely feel. "Well?" I said to him.

"There they are," he said. "They feel strong."

I looked around first, but there was only a Berkeley student daydreaming over a book on the other platform. Nothing to worry about. I followed the kid's. A few yards from him, out from under the covering, I saw two punk teenagers sitting on one of the round concrete benches, laughing as the rain trickled down on them and the cars on the expressway rushed past.

The girl had dyed black hair and white make-up that didn't smudge in the rain. Her lips were painted black, but her tongue showed bright pink when she laughed, with a small bright flash in the middle. She wore fishnets and Doc Martens, a purple velvet skirt, and a red plastic raincoat. Her ears were a mass of silver. Her nose was pierced in the middle, and her ankle was wrapped with a green tattoo that showed through the fishnets.

The boy had narrower features, and he looked as if he'd always been worried. He had a cloud of wiry dark brown hair that was not quite curly enough to be an Afro but nowhere near straight enough to lie down. His skin was an indeterminate tan color, and his features could have belonged to anyone. One of his ears had a dark brown disc in it. He wore unbleached muslin pants and sandals -- his feet must be cold in the rain, I thought -- and a poncho whose sole impression on me was "grubby." His backpack was battered but came from REI.

"Ohhh my," I said. "What have we here."

I had seen them both before. They hadn't been dressed the same way, of course. But I would have known them anywhere. I'd never seen them together before.

"Who are they?" whispered the kid.

"Doubt and Certainty," I said out of the corner of my mouth. He looked quizzical. "The girl's Certainty."

"You've met them before?"

"Oh yeah." He looked curious. I shrugged. "You'll see a lot of them, in this business."

"Your emotions start showing up in your living room?"

"Yep," I said. "Makes it a lot harder to ignore them, and it's almost impossible to make them go away."

"That seems like an occupational hazard."

I chuckled. "Just try getting worker's comp for the shrink bills. What we need to do is separate them."

"Why?"

I rolled my eyes. "How do you fight Certainty?"

"With Doubt -- oh."

"Yeah. Oh. I'll try to get Doubt aside -- you distract Certainty."

"How do I do that?"

I shrugged. "Improvise."

I put my hood up against the piddling rain and sauntered over to them. The kid followed suit. "Lovely night," I said.

"Hello, Toni," said Certainty.

"It's been awhile, hasn't it?" said Doubt.

"Five weeks and four days. For me." Certainty. Of course.

"What are you guys doing here?" I asked.

Doubt shrugged.

"Entertaining ourselves," said Certainty sharply. "You got a problem with that?"

"Actually, yeah, I do," I said.

"Yeah, we do," the kid echoed me. Doubt and Certainty both looked at him for a split second, then focused on me again.

I sighed. "Can I talk to you alone, Doubt?" I told the kid I'd met both of them, and that was true. But I'd spent a lot more time hanging out with Doubt; Certainty hadn't come around much since my brother died.

"I don't think so," he said.

"No," said Certainty. "We have more fun together, you know that?"

"Really," I said. "Since when?"

"Since we figured it all out. Nobody is more certain than a skeptic who's been convinced. But nobody is easier to push into doubt than a believer who's never doubted."

"A believer in what?" asked the kid.

Doubt chuckled. "Oh, anything. God. Themselves. A's baseball. Whatever."

"So you've been helping each other find prey?" I said.

Certainty made a clicking noise -- playing with her tongue ring, I realized -- and shook her head. "Not prey, Toni. Companionship. We never preyed on you."

"The hell you didn't." I remembered nights with them, Certainty following me around as I patrolled, egging me on to do this, try that, follow the other lead, Doubt sitting with me at home for silent hours.

"We haven't hurt anybody," said Doubt softly.

I looked at him through narrowed eyes. The kid blurted out, "Oh, yeah, like we believe that!" I ignored him.

"But you've been hurt yourself," I said.

Certainty said, "Oh, bullshit!"

"I didn't say 'yourselves.'"

Doubt looked at me with eyes of shifting colors, green, grey, brown.

"Oh yes," I said softly. "She told you it was even, didn't she? She told you it was half and half, you could scratch her back and she'd scratch yours. She didn't tell you how deep the scratches would go, did she?"

He said nothing. Certainty said, "Shut up! That's just stupid. You know how things have been. You don't have to listen to her."

I didn't even look at her. "You've been right with her for a long time, haven't you? Months, right? And you've been a little tired the whole time. A little worn. Your sore throat won't go away. You keep getting headaches."

He stared at me. I was almost there. "Come on away from her for just a minute. Just a minute. Come on under the roof and see what it's like to be free of her for awhile. How long has it been since you just went and hung out at somebody's house like you used to do at mine?"

"But this way --" He had to clear his throat. "This way we get in touch with more people."

"But is more better? Do you know that for sure?"

He stood up. "I don't know."

We walked together under the platform, while the kid chattered desperately at Certainty. I dug in my pockets for one of my favorite spells, one of my best spells. It was an oldie but a goodie -- it made a shower of colored sparks. Nothing major, but boy was it a hit at my neighbor kid's birthday party. I'd done it a million times.

"You feel better, don't you?" I asked. "Just getting away from her."

He frowned. "I think so."

I pulled the spell out, in the form of a little paper fortune-teller. Doubt watched curiously as I threw it up in the air. I said the word of release and did a little jump. He let out a little cry and disappeared.

Certainty shrieked, and she and the kid ran towards me.

"What did you do?" wailed Certainty.

"Just a little firework-spell," I said, more to the kid than to her. "If you can't use Certainty to dispel Doubt, confidence is a pretty good substitute. You remember that."

"Confidence," said the kid grimly. "Right. But what if you're confident in something else but doubt yourself? What then?"

Certainty screamed like a siren, which is probably what people thought it was, in the middle of the night in Oakland. It was near a hospital. They were probably used to it, even the poets sleeping in their garrets in the little neighborhood across Telegraph. Even the kids talking trash on the street corner. It just wasn't an unusual noise.

I tried not to be too certain of that. I didn't know where the hell she'd gone, or why. But I was glad she'd gone. "Well, that's that," I said.

"Observation," said the kid.

I sighed. "Yes, Wayne?"

"No, I mean, Observation." He pointed. "Over there."

He was pointing at the Berkeley student. I looked at her, then blinked twice -- what Berkeley student would have been reading in a subway station after the last train had gone? We should have known, should have noticed.

The kid did notice. "You did good, Wayne," I told him.

He blushed. "Thanks. But that is who it is, right? Observation?"

She had little librarian glasses and a no-nonsense haircut. Flannel shirt, Einstein T-shirt -- could have been Science, except I'd met Science before. And Science didn't usually pretend to read Margaret Atwood poems.

"I think so," I said. "I don't know her."

"Should we go check?"

"Might as well. She's listening to us anyway."

"Do you mind if I, um --" He blushed. "I always wanted to jump the BART tracks. It'd just need a little push with magic, and I've got --"

"Don't blame me if you fall and break your fool neck," I said.

"All -- all right." He took it for assent. Silly kid. But he looked awfully happy soaring through the air there. What the hell.

I landed beside him with a soft thump.

"Evening," I said to Observation. "Night, really," she said.

I sighed. "You got business in this station?"

She smiled a dreamy smile up at me and the kid. "Oh yes. It's one of the best places there is. So many things -- if you're not careful, you'll miss one or two."

"We noticed that," I said dryly.

"Do you know Doubt and Certainty?" asked the kid.

"I know everybody," she said.

The kid and I exchanged sharp looks. "But have you been working with Doubt and Certainty?" I asked.

"Oh yes," she said. "They don't know it. But whenever I poke them, they come up with the loveliest schemes. Oh, the people's reactions, when they sat here for half an hour -- and the conductors of the trains behind them -- all that was beautiful. Just beautiful."

"You can't do that any more," I said.

She looked hurt. "Why not?"

While I was pondering that, the kid spoke up. "If you do stuff like that, fewer and fewer people will use the train," he said. "They just won't be able to, if they can see that it's not trustworthy. Then you'll have less to observe when Doubt and Certainty aren't around."

She frowned.

"You'll be bored."

"So what do I do?"

"You have to promise us that you won't interfere with the trains any more," I said, "or encourage anyone else to interfere with them. Binding word."

"Binding word?"

"Yes," said Wayne, "or you won't be able to watch people here at all."

She sighed and put her binding word on a little contract we drew up then and there. Luckily we had silver dust and yarrow stalks handy to make it doubly bound. Wayne and I bid Observation good night and took the spell off the station so that we could get out.

"You did pretty well with Observation there," I said.

"I was a bio major in college," he said. "I know how scientists work."

"Observers aren't all scientists."

"She was close enough, wasn't she?"

I chuckled. "Yeah, I guess she was. What I can't figure out is why Certainty left in the first place," I said.

Wayne grinned. "I provided a difficult counter-example. Even if it didn't turn out to disprove your theory about getting rid of Doubt, it shook it."

"And the force of that was enough to get rid of her. Interesting. Good choice."

He shrugged. "Never hurts to try stuff."

"Oh, that's just not true. Sometimes it hurts quite a bit." I smiled. "But it was a good gamble. You're going to be okay, kid."

"You sure of that?"

"It's a hard balance to keep. Let's say that I'm almost sure."

"I can live with that."

The End

Bio