The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt

expecting a police officer, or a homeless person, already deciding how to deal with either one.
    But it was only Beej, holding a wadded-up black garbage bag. “Hi, Denis, mud-girl,” he said, bobbing his weasellike head. “Have you come to be acolytes of the earthquake god, too?”
    “Puppet of the patriarchy,” Jane spat.
    The front door of Genius Loci opened a crack, and Marzi stuck her head out. “Sorry, folks,” she said. “We’re closed. Why don’t you go to the Saturn Café? They’re still open.”
    “Hi, Marzi,” Beej said cheerfully. “I’ve come to liberate the earthquake god.”
    Curiouser and curiouser,
Denis thought. But before he could say or do anything in response, Jane snarled, rather dramatically, and launched herself at Marzi, and Denis had little choice but to give the ensuing events his full attention.

Hole Up
----
    “Fuck!” Marzi shouted, and pulled the door shut just as Jane slammed against it. For a moment, Marzi’s face was mere inches from Jane’s, only the thin pane of glass in the door separating them. Marzi stumbled back from the fury in Jane’s expression. “Get lost, or we’re calling the cops!” she shouted, and Jane flinched, more at the volume than the threat, Marzi thought.
    Beej ambled up the steps, smiling sheepishly. He held up a pair of red-handled wire cutters. “Sorry,” he said. “I cut the phone lines, when I saw you guys in there. See, there’s this earthquake god, and if you called for help—”
    Jane shoved Beej aside, sending him stumbling into a table. Denis came hurrying up the stairs, saying “Jane” in a half-pleading, half-threatening tone. Jane whirled and began arguing with him, gesturing fiercely at the door as Marzi watched.
    “The phone’s out,” Jonathan said, and Marzi turned to see him standing by the counter, holding the receiver in his hand. Marzi opened her mouth, then closed it again. What could she say? Things had gotten pathologically weird in the past two minutes. Beej had
cut the phone lines
? Marzi couldn’t begin to assimilate that—it was too bizarre, too made-for-TV-movie.
    Lindsay rolled her eyes. “What, do they think this is 1981?” She reached into her purse and withdrew her cell phone. She dialed, then said, “Yeah, we’re at one sixty-one Ash Street, Genius Loci café, and there’s three people outside threatening us, trying to break in.” She paused, then brightened. “Yeah, hey, Joey! They got you on night dispatch, huh? So, could you send somebody over to—great. Sure, I’ll stay on the line, let me pass on the good word.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s Joey Montaigne, you remember him, he used to skateboard down by the boardwalk all the time? He’s a cop now, isn’t it wild? Anyway, he’s sending some guys, and since the police station’s only a couple of blocks away . . .” She held up her forefinger and cocked her head, listening.
    Marzi listened, too, and heard sirens approaching.
    “The sirens are a nice touch, Joey,” Lindsay said into the phone. “Though I think they’re scaring off the bad guys.”
    Denis grabbed Jane’s arm and tugged her toward the street, looking around, panicked. Jane looked into the café, her face white and baleful. Marzi grinned at her and waved. “Bye now,” she said.
    Jane bared her teeth and hissed, like one of those exotic cockroaches, and then allowed Denis to lead her down the steps and along the sidewalk, away from the approaching sirens.
    Jonathan came to stand beside Marzi, looking out the door. “This may be the strangest night of my life,” he said.
    “It’s climbing the charts for me, too,” Marzi said.
    Beej appeared in the doorway like some lateral jack-in-the-box. He scratched his fuzzy scalp with the end of the wire cutters. “Hey, Marzi, let me in,” he said. “Sorry I came on so strong, cut the phone lines and all; I got a little too James Bond, I know. But see, I’m supposed to free the earthquake god, and it’ll