The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl

by Tim Pratt

  Denis threw both bottles as hard and far as he could, into the gift shop with the open door. The bottles crashed inside, knocking over a rack of greeting cards and startling the shoppers. Gasoline splashed, flames leapt, and people screamed. Everywhere up and down the street people came out of shops and restaurants to see what was happening, but Denis barely sensed them on the periphery—he stared into the store, where an elderly woman was on fire, where fire was spreading across the carpet, where smoke was beginning to billow.

  The godlet clapped him on the shoulder. “Good throw! You might be worth more than your weight in horseshit after all!”

  Behind them, there was a horrible, grinding, crunching noise.

  Jane had successfully smashed her way through one of the thick support columns, and the clock tower was beginning to fall. Jane ran from the square as the tower ponderously toppled, smashing into the street, crushing the hood of a silver sedan, brick and clockwork spraying everywhere, bell torn loose and bouncing on the asphalt. Such an improbable, huge act of destruction jarred Denis from his horrified fascination with what he’d done to the gift shop—what he’d been forced to do, what he’d had no choice but to do.

  The godlet stomped his foot, and the ground trembled, only slightly, but noticeably; a few of the terrified people on the street fell down, and Denis nearly did so himself. “Happy trails ahead,” the godlet said. “Let’s go back to the car and make a few more bombs, what do you say? I can throw them out the windows while you drive.”

  Jane wrapped her hardened arms around Denis’s waist. “We’re tearing down everything,” she said.

  “Yes,” Denis managed. They were. And it was horrible. This was not a clean, scouring act. This was chaos, and wreckage, and old women on fire.

  He stepped away from Jane, bent at the waist, and vomited up bile onto the sidewalk.

  “Greenhorn,” the godlet said, almost affectionately. “Don’t worry. A few more bombs, and you’ll get used to it.”

  Box Canyon

  * * *

  “So he’s a spirit of destruction, but he’s also the Outlaw from Marzi’s comics?” Jonathan said.

  “Yes,” Lindsay said.

  “And . . . that’s Garamond Ray?” If anything, he sounded more incredulous about that than about the other, more outrageous things he’d been told. Jonathan didn’t remember much, he said, except feeling compelled to come downstairs and open the door—then it was just brightness, something monstrous brushing past him, and a sense of suffocation that lasted until they freed him.

  “That’s Ray. In all his glory,” Lindsay said.

  “Unbelievable,” Jonathan said. “This is going to change my whole thesis.”

  “Yeah. You’ll have to make something up, though, about where he’s been all this time,” Marzi said.

  Ray still seemed taken aback by this turn of events. “I’ll help you come up with something,” Ray said. “Once . . . all this is resolved. And after I have a nice rare steak, and a few bottles of wine, and get laid, and take about a hundred showers. Not necessarily in that order. As close to concurrently as possible, actually. We can just say I was in the Middle East seeking inner truth for the past fifteen years, or something. And that I’m a youngish looking sixty-year-old, because of all that clean living I’ve been doing.”

  “Yes,” Jonathan said. “We should definitely talk.” He looked to Marzi, expression still a little dazed. “But in the meantime, what do we do?”

  “I can’t believe you’re taking this so well,” Marzi said.

  Jonathan shrugged. “I’m here. I can look around. I remember you dragging me out of the sand. I remember the . . . thing . . . that passed me in the doorway. I don’t think you’re lying to me.” He frowned. “I wish you’d told me about this stuff before, though. I never would have opened the door.”

  Marzi bowed her head. “I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t have.” He shivered. “I still can’t get over the fact that you were all inside me. I feel like I’ve been turned inside out and rolled in the mud. I appreciate what you did, I do, but . . . I can’t describe the feeling. It’s not good.”

  Marzi nodded. She’d been inside Jonathan’s soul—it was a profound violation, no matter how noble their intentions had been. She could feel his walls going back up, feel him pulling back. Marzi wanted to reach out and touch him, but she was afraid he’d flinch away.

  “It’s better than leaving you one of the living dead, kid,” Ray said brusquely. “So, do we have a plan?”

  “Yes,” Marzi said. She couldn’t worry about Jonathan, not now—she’d brought him back, and facing the consequences of her method would just have to wait. “We’re going to go through the door, back to Santa Cruz . . . and we’re going to have a showdown with the Outlaw.”

  “Fuck,” Ray said. “I was afraid the plan would be something like that.”

  “There’s no point in trying to trap the Outlaw. He’s not a djinn anymore. He’s a gunslinger, and we have to defeat him the way you defeat a gunslinger.” Marzi touched the gun at her hip. “That means I face him, and we fight.”

  “And what happens if you die?” Lindsay asked.

  Marzi glanced at Ray.

  “Well,” he said slowly, “it’s not like I’m an expert on these things, but I suspect that if Marzi isn’t around anymore, imposing her perspective, the Outlaw will stop being an outlaw and become . . . whatever he was, originally. An earthquake with a mind. A wildfire that thinks. Right now, he’s more limited than that—he can’t fly, he can’t walk through walls, he can’t be in more than one place at once. Hell, he’s less powerful as a gunslinger than he was as a djinn—though as Marzi has noted, he’s harder to trap.”

  “If you put an outlaw in jail, he always escapes,” Jonathan said. “In the stories.”

  “Yeah,” Marzi said. “But in the stories, when the hero faces the villain in the final showdown, the hero usually wins.”

  “Usually,” Lindsay said.

  Marzi nodded. “Yes. Not always, it’s true. I might lose. But I don’t think I will. For one thing, I’ve got a better sense of how to control things, now. I think I can make the Outlaw more human, turn him into just a cunning, vicious wizard, instead of a god.”

  “A cunning, vicious wizard can still kill you,” Lindsay said. “I do not support this plan, Marzi.”

  “And I’d like to note that, in the stories, if anyone dies, it’s usually one of the hero’s faithful sidekicks,” Ray said, and looked at Lindsay and Jonathan.

  Marzi wanted to tell them they had nothing to worry about—that unless she was very much mistaken, it would never come down to the Outlaw shooting at her. But if she told them her real plan, it might not work; she needed them to play their parts, to be her posse, and they would do that better if they didn’t know they were only playing. She was the one in ultimate control of things, yes—she imposed the paradigm of her comic book on the situation—but Lindsay and Jonathan and, especially, Ray, could all change things slightly, create fluctuations, and she couldn’t have that. It was imperative that she be Rangergirl, as far as they were concerned, that the spirit of the wasteland be the Outlaw from her comic—cruel, cunning, and powerful, but mortal—and that they stand facing one another, prepared to have the showdown that the story demanded. “We’ll be okay,” Marzi said. “You have to trust me. Okay?”

  “I don’t guess we have a choice,” Ray said.

  “I’m with you, Marzi,” Jonathan said.

  Lindsay frowned, then sighed. “I just don’t want you to get hurt, Marzipan.”

  “I don’t want me to get hurt, either,” she said, managing a smile. “This will all be over soon. Let’s get out of here.”

  They set out into the desert, away from The Oasis, through the sad little ghost town. There were figures in the distance, around the town, watching them: the Comanche, sitting tall on their chimera steeds; a stand of cactus people; a flock of humanoid vultures, their wings like cloaks.


  “You sure stirred things up, Marzi. They’ve never paid so much attention to me,” Ray said. “It’s a good thing we’re leaving.”

  “I don’t ever plan on coming back, either,” Marzi said.

  They reached the door, in its freestanding fragment of wall.

  “What’s to stop the Outlaw from standing on the far side of the door with a shotgun?” Lindsay said. “Trying to get the drop on us?”

  “Narrative imperative,” Marzi said. “He doesn’t want to win that way. He wants to face me, banter a little, and outdraw me. I know it.” She worked hard at knowing it. If she doubted it, after all, it would become possible for the Outlaw to be standing on the other side of the door with a shotgun. “Besides, he’s out raising hell, getting his strength back, so he can do some serious damage. He’ll want to be strong when he faces me.”

  “How reassuring,” Ray said.

  Marzi opened the door, revealing the dimness of the Desert Room, enough light spilling in from this side to illuminate a little trash on the floor. “In we go,” Marzi said, and ushered her friends in, keeping an eye on the things watching them; the Comanche in particular didn’t seem happy, which was understandable, given the ass-whipping they’d received, but they seemed willing to just watch them go. Marzi backed through the door, still watching, and then slammed the door shut after her.

  She turned around in the darkness. “Somebody turn on the light? It’s by the other door, over on the right.”

  “Got it,” Lindsay said. There was the sound of shuffling feet, then the light came on. Lindsay was standing by the door. “There. But it was on the left, actually.”

  Marzi frowned. “Oh. Sorry. Can’t trust my memory, I guess.”

  “This is not what I painted,” Ray said.

  Marzi nodded. “I know. It’s from my comic, mostly.” The door was almost impossible to see now, blending in with the building it had been painted on.

  “Ah, well,” Ray said, sighing. “Who said art was immortal?”

  “I wish I’d gotten some pictures of the old mural, before it changed,” Jonathan said. “But you can tell me about it, at least.”

  “Can we get out of here?” Lindsay said. “Not to interrupt the art appreciation session or anything, but being near that door makes me nervous. Shouldn’t we board it up or something?”

  “The things over there can’t open the door,” Ray said. “They can slip through if someone else opens it, but they’re stuck, on their own. If they weren’t . . . well. Boards wouldn’t stop them.”

  “Yes, but they’d stop someone else from opening the door, not knowing what could happen,” Marzi said. “I should’ve boarded it up myself.”

  “I probably would’ve just gotten a hammer,” Jonathan said. “Or even torn it off with my bare hands. I was pretty determined to open it.”

  “The Outlaw used to stand at the door and whisper,” Ray said. “I’ve seen it. Most people resist pretty well, I think . . . but Jonathan wanted to see this room badly anyway. And the Outlaw’s been pounding on the door for ages, making cracks in it, even projecting himself through it, in a limited way. I don’t think he could affect physical things at all, then, but he could talk . . . and for some people, that’s enough.”

  “Beej,” Marzi said. “And Jane.”

  “And Alice,” Lindsay said. “But she was strong enough to run away.” Lindsay opened the door, violently, and left the Desert Room.

  Marzi sighed and took Jonathan’s hand. “She’s been through a lot.”

  “Marzi!” Lindsay shouted, and there was a note of panic in her voice Marzi had never heard before, not even during their travails beyond the door. She ran through the kitchen, into the Space Room, and found Lindsay staring out the bay window. Marzi went to her, and looked. It was night outside, but the moon was bright enough to see by.

  Santa Cruz was gone. Beyond the windows there was nothing but churned earth, bits of asphalt and wood protruding from the wrecked ground. No grass, trees, bushes, or buildings remained. Genius Loci seemed to be the only structure left standing.

  Marzi was vaguely aware of Ray and Jonathan coming to stand with them, but mostly she was lost in her own mind. She’d failed. They were too late.

  “Time moves differently over there,” Ray said. “There’s no telling how long we were gone.” Lindsay was crying, and Jonathan was touching Marzi’s shoulder, murmuring something meant to be reassuring. But Marzi could think of nothing but the wreckage out there, of the lives and places lost. Mostly she thought of what she’d lost—selfish, but true. Never to walk along West Cliff Drive again, watching the surfers and the bright sails of the boats. Never to see clouds of monarch butterflies, or eat a greasy slice at the newspaper-strewn counter in Pizza My Heart, or sit in the courtyard behind Javha House, or by the duck pond in the park across the river, or spend hours in Bookshop Santa Cruz. Never again to watch a midnight showing of The Cat People or Nosferatu at the Nick or the Del Mar Theater, or drink pints of Guinness at the Poet & Patriot. She’d never get her name on a plaque on the wall for drinking every kind of beer at 99 Bottles, or see the view of the bay from campus, or go to Shakespeare Santa Cruz in the summer, or watch kite surfing off Highway 1, or go looking for tide pools, or walk down Pacific Avenue while flowers fell from the trees and drifted in the air.

  Gone, gone. Nothing left of her whole life here except the café.

  If her gun were still real, not just a plastic toy again, she thought she might put it into her mouth and pull the trigger, rather than go on living in a place that was ruined because of her.

  Suddenly there was a weight on her hip. She touched the gun’s grip, and was only briefly surprised when she touched wood. It made sense, after all: This was the Outlaw’s country now, saturated with the essence of a being from the medicine lands. Reality was flexible here, because Marzi had failed. But no amount of imagination on Marzi’s part could bring back the dead or rebuild the lost places. They were gone forever. Even if she conjured illusions, there’d be no real life in them.

  Maybe suicide was the best option. Or they could go back through the door, dwell in the lands beyond the lands under a tent of illusions, assaulted by monsters, living in fear of the scorpion oracle’s frustrated wrath . . . No, that wasn’t much of a choice, either.

  “They rebuilt, after Loma Prieta,” Lindsay said.

  Ray laughed hollowly. “And I never got to see it. It couldn’t have been this bad after Loma Prieta, anyway, and by then the Outlaw was locked away. It’s still stomping around loose out there. What I don’t understand is why it left the café standing.”

  “As a sort of memorial, maybe?” Jonathan said. “Something to gloat over?”

  “No,” Marzi and Ray said, simultaneously. Ray continued. “The Outlaw doesn’t leave things. He levels.”

  Puzzlement was beginning to overcome shock in Marzi’s mind. She looked around. Why was the café still standing?

  And more importantly, what was different about it? Now that she really looked, the café was like one of those “What’s wrong with this picture?” puzzles. It was basically the same . . . but the clock, made of a Fiesta dinner plate, was green now, instead of yellow. The pipes exposed on the ceiling over the counter didn’t join up properly, and there were more of them than there should have been. The molding around the top of the walls wasn’t chipped in the right places. The couch didn’t have a hole on one armrest like it should have. They were minor things that no one else was likely to notice, but Marzi knew the details of this café better than she knew her own home. The murals were wrong, too, the stars and asteroids in slightly incorrect places. This wasn’t Genius Loci. It was a good, but imperfect, copy.

  And then she understood. Not the how, but the what, and the why, too—hell, even how was obvious, in its way: by magic.

  Not just magic, but derivative magic, at that. Plagiarism made real.

  They’d been lured into a box canyon.

  “The Outlaw’s fucking with us, guys, this is bull
shit,” Marzi said. She looked up, gestured at the ceiling. “There’s not even a trapdoor there, Jonathan, and you know there should be. This isn’t Genius Loci. That isn’t Santa Cruz. It’s a trap, a tide pool, a pocket universe, and the Outlaw got the idea from me, issue number seven, ‘Box Canyon.’ ” She laughed. “Did he think I wouldn’t notice?”

  “You’re sure?” Ray said. “It’s not just wishful thinking?”

  “No, she’s right,” Lindsay said, no longer crying. “It’s a fake. I see it now.”

  “It’s still a trap, though,” Jonathan said.

  “Then we’d better get out of it,” Marzi said.

  Their clothing had changed back to ordinary street garb when they passed through the door, but now Marzi willed them into their Western clothes—Ray in a serape and a battered brown hat, a rifle slung on his back; Jonathan in immaculate black, with a bolo tie and shiny silver guns; Lindsay in her vest and bowler. With some effort, Marzi conjured a tommy gun for Lindsay—it was hard, since she’d seen the gun eaten by a giant flea earlier, but she managed to believe in it enough.

  “Do you think the Outlaw’s here?” Lindsay asked.

  “No,” Marzi said. “He’s out raising hell while the cat’s away. But I’m sure there’s other nasty stuff in here with us.”

  They went into the Cloud Room, the paintings just foggy swirls in the dimness. “Fiat lux,” Marzi said, and the lights came on overhead. “I always wanted to do that,” she said, grinning. “They screwed up, sending us here. I can change anything I want.”

  “I don’t imagine they care what you imagine,” Ray said, “as long as we don’t get out.”

  “Point,” Marzi said, but the power still thrilled her. And she would get them out.

  “Um,” Lindsay said. “Is it me, or is it getting foggy in here?” Mist was swirling out of the walls, the clouds in the murals filling the room. A sound like paper tearing came from the Teatime Room, followed by a low growl.