They drove to the lookout in James's van, stuffed with his climbing equipment. James had taken Petrel's story in stride. A tall man, almost as tall as the elf, James was much bulkier but a lot less intimidating. He cheerfully agreed to Lisa's suggestion to be the narrator of her movie.

"I know so many Native legends about the local caves, I would need a couple hours just to tell them all," he said, his eyes twinkling.

Lisa nodded happily. Her film was shaping up, but Petrel didn't like her attention on James. The elf sulked. James, used to the teenage boys in his community center, dealt with the sulking elf the same way: he laughed at him with his eyes and treated him with exaggerated politeness. Lisa had witnesses his tactics before, when she taught art to James's charges, and she loved his approach. Petrel obviously didn't, but he couldn't object to the polite words. He glowered instead.

"I know about the cave you want." James steered his heavy van with practice ease. "It is not in any tourist guides, and I've never taken anyone there, but our legends say that it leads into a forbidden place, a place of Dark Raven. In the 19th century, several of our best hunters tried to explore the cave. None came back. I went in once, a few years ago, but I didn't go far. It felt wrong. I trust my intuition."

"There should be..." Petrel hesitated, as if searching for a right word, "a warning, a magical repulsion spell, set up by my grandfather at a spot where the cave crosses into Elfhome. It might feel to you as 'wrong.'"

"What would happen if someone disregards that warning and keeps going?" Lisa asked.

"They would get to Elfhome, I think."

"Why wouldn't they come back then? James said nobody came back."

"Maybe they got eaten. Our forests are much more dangerous than yours. They are full of nasty creatures. Imagine your wild beasts, like wolves or boars, but enhanced with magic. Smarter, meaner, stronger, with sharper teeth. Carnivorous plants too."

"Gross," Lisa said.

James's eyes stopped laughing. "So what are you going to do, Petrel, if you do find this gate? You said the only elven settlements on this continent on Elfhome are on the east coast. Are you going to hike alone across North America, through miles of forest populated with magic-enhanced monsters?"

Petrel stared wordlessly at James, then at Lisa. His lips opened, but no words emerged. He closed his mouth with a snap.

"Could you survive such a trek?" Lisa probed. "I know you can fight, but it is a long way. It might take you months on foot."

"No," Petrel said softly. "I can't survive alone. I didn't think about it."

"So what are you going to do? Maybe your grandfather would sail again to this coast?"

"I don't think so." Petrel retreated into silence.

"We'll investigate anyway," James said after a while. "Today, after the movie shoot, we'll get into the cave and see what we can find. Then we'll come back and brainstorm."

"What is there to brainstorm?" Petrel said bitterly. "I was a fool to come here."

"You need transportation," James said. "I'd say, some flying machine, a plane or a chopper, but portable, one you could bring in spare parts and assemble in the cave. That would seriously cut your travel time. I have a couple buddies—they own an aviation club out in Abbotsford. They might help. The guys can build anything from a bunch of screws and a piece of tarp. Real MacGyvers."

"Maybe," Petrel said after a long silence. "What is a macgyver? I don't know the word?"

Lisa laughed, and James chuckled. "It's a name," Lisa said. "And a TV series. MacGyver could build anything from scotch tape and paper clips. Totally unreal but fun. I'll find it for you online."

When they arrived, Corey with his van and Dylan with his motorcycle were already at the parking lot. So was the gray sedan with its three morose passengers. Dylan wore his police uniform, the multiple gadgets on his belt looking almost authentic. The men from the sedan eyed him uneasily. Corey was blithely unloading his lighting equipment and didn't pay much attention to Dylan or to the strangers from the sedan.

"I love you, Dylan," Lisa murmured. "Petrel, stay in the van until those people leave. Afterwards, you'll come out, and I'll introduce you to my friends. We'll shoot the movie, and then you and James will go to the cave."

"Your friend is a policeman," Petrel said.

"No. They are both students at the film school with me. Corey is aiming for a cameraman job. Dylan is an actor. He already plays extra in a couple TV series; in both, he is a walk-on policeman. That's his costume, and he knows how to do police talk too. He's even had a few words on camera once in a while. Intimidating, isn't he? I asked him to come in costume and scare off any bystanders. He is doing a fine job."

She jumped out of the van and headed towards Corey. Dylan ambled over too.

"So we're shooting for real?" Corey said.

"What do I do with those folks?" Dylan asked, jerking his blond head towards the sedan.

"I'll talk to them first. I might interview them too, but after that, we'll ask them to leave. If they resist, you'll tell them that we have a permit for this area until nightfall."

"What if a real policeman comes along?"

"Then we're shooting a student movie, and you're in costume. Don't worry, you won't get in trouble. I'm the director."

"Yah, yah, the hottest chick at school, and she is the director. You should be a star." He leered at her breasts.

"If you don't want to ruin your pretty face, you brainless hunk, you will keep your opinion to yourself. Or I'll punch you in the nose."

Dylan laughed. "All words, no play."

Lisa made a fist and struck it under Dylan's nose. She couldn't reach higher without standing on tiptoe. Dylan, who was over a foot taller and studied martial arts, easily dodged her fake blow. They often bantered like that at school. All their classmates were used to it.

Her conversation with Petrel's enemies wasn't nearly as much fun, but just as quick. Only one of them talked to her. The other two stayed quiet.

"You're shooting a student movie? And you want to interview us on camera? No!" The spokesman sounded as if she suggested something obscene.

"Then you'll have to leave, sir." Lisa tried to inject regret into her tone. It wasn't easy. She wasn't a good actress and never aspired to be. Fortunately, she could lie with the best of them. "We have a permit to use this parking lot until nightfall. We have more people coming soon."

Dylan hovered behind her shoulder, looking as swaggering as a real policeman and ready to say his part, but it wasn't necessary. After a brief consultation, the men from the sedan retreated to their car and drove away.

When they vanished behind the bend, Petrel got out of the van. Lisa made the introductions. Her friend from New York, an accountant—she invented as boring a profession as she could, to prevent intense questioning from her film friends—wanted to see how they made student movies in Canada. Petrel played his role like a trained actor. He even offered to help Corey with his equipment and stayed close to James's van all the time they worked on the movie.

"Great guy," Dylan said afterwards, when Petrel demonstrated for him some martial moves.

"What is such an eye-candy doing as an accountant?" Corey mused as he stowed away his lights and cables. "He should be starring in movies. Camera would love him.

Without answering, Lisa waved her friends on their way.

"I'll wait for you here, in the van," she informed Petrel and James, as they kitted up for their cave excursion: backpacks, ropes, torches, and other spelunking gear.

"You're not coming with us?" Petrel sounded disappointed.

"Nope. I don't like caves."

They left, and she settled into the back of the van with her laptop and the film. She was so absorbed in her editing that she only lifted her head when it became too dark in the van. How long had the boys been gone? The laptop clock indicated over four hours. Should she start worrying? How long did it take to get to Elfhome and back? Had anything happened to them?

To get her mind off the possible disaster scenarios, she called her mother. "How is Marina?"

"The same. Lisa, I don't know what it means, but her pain seems to be gone. She is still feverish, but it is down too. She is weak and sleeps a lot; that's about it. I'm afraid, Lisa. I'm afraid it's the end." She sobbed quietly. "In the past two days, she hasn't needed her pain medications once. I can't even take her to the hospital. Nothing to complain about."

"Mom, don't take her to the hospital," Lisa said hurriedly. "You know she hates it. Maybe she is in remission again. Maybe she'll get better. Wait." Maybe Petrel's blood was working.

Lisa told her mother about her movie and ended the call. Then she hopped out of the van. She needed to stretch her legs. She also needed to relieve herself, and she would have to hike into the trees to find a secluded spot. This lonely lookout didn't boast a washroom.

This stretch of the road wasn't running flash to the steep cliff, as most of the Sea-to-Sky highway did. Here, the mountains stepped away from the road, and the trees grew dense over the gradual incline. After a few minutes of climbing in the murky twilight, using a small torch not to trip over the roots, she found what she was looking for—a dense clump of shrubbery.

She finished her business already when she heard a car pulling into the lot. The headlights seemed too bright. The car engine stuttered to a halt. Why would anyone come here so late? They wouldn't be able to see much in the darkness, even with their headlights on.

Cautiously, Lisa straightened, and her head cleared the top of the shrubbery. From her dark hideout between the trunks, the parking lot unfolded like a movie screen. Behind James's van, the gray sedan that had been here before opened its doors, disgorging the same three passengers. The sedan's lights winked out. The men marched to the van with their own torchlights on, their guns drawn and ready. They yanked the van's door open—she had stupidly left it unlocked—and rushed inside.

Lisa swallowed her terror, her legs rubbery, her hands shaking. She didn't turn on her little torch again. Careful not to make too much noise, she dropped the light in her pocket, stepped back out of her makeshift washroom, and slid behind the nearest tree trunk. Her heart hammered in her chest. Petrel's adversaries came back, and she was alone in the empty parking lot, in the middle of nowhere, with three goons with guns.

At least they didn't know she was here, but guns? Before this week, she had never seen people with guns in real life, only on screen. Canadians didn't carry guns, but she had encountered entirely too many guns in the last few days. Maybe that terrorist at the Bard wasn't a coincidence. Maybe those three thugs had hired him to flush out Petrel.

Drat! Petrel and James were in trouble. She peeked out from behind her protective trunk, but the parking lot was quiet. The van didn't move. The only change was the gray sedan behind the van, hardly visible in the night. The three killers were going to ambush her friends.

Not if she could help it! She fished out her phone out of her pocket and dialed James's number. No answer. Of course, if he was still inside the cave, there would be no signal there. She left a message anyway: "Sedan returned. Ambush inside van." Then she turned the phone to vibrate. What else could she do?

Should she call the police? Her finger poised to dial 911, but she hesitated. Petrel didn't want the police to know about him. If she were writing this movie, she would make his enemies infiltrate the police. Maybe they did. She couldn't run such risk. The phone, un-dialed, landed in her pocket.

She would've tried to warn James and Petrel, but she didn't know the whereabouts of the cave. James had said it was hard to find. Anyway, in the darkness, she couldn't see five steps in front of her, let alone locate an unknown cave.

It started drizzling—the usual Vancouver drizzle—and the pale, half-disc of the moon rode behind the mist. Maybe she should check the gun-toting morons' car. Maybe there was something there she could use against them. If they didn't leave anyone inside.

Under the cover of trees, Lisa inched slowly around the parking lot. When she was as close to the sedan as she could get, just behind the van, she bent low, the way she had seen in the movies, and crept towards the car. The door of the passenger seat loomed in front of her. She peeked in—nobody there. She pulled gently, and it opened. The fools hadn't locked their car, and the key was still in the ignition. Just like herself. She scrambled in, anxiously watching the van, ready to bolt into the wooded darkness again, but nothing moved.

The intruders would be sorry, Lisa thought viciously. A car was a powerful tool in the right hands. She scrabbled into the driver's seat and hunched low, contemplating the opposite side of the parking lot. That was where James had led Petrel, before they started climbing the hillside along a narrow trail. She hoped they would come back the same way.

Half an hour later, they did. Their torches' pinpricks of lights flickered on and off in the darkness, as the men weaved their way between the trees. They walked openly, no stealth, presenting two clear targets. Hadn't James checked his messages? Probably not. The killers in the van would notice them too and be ready with their guns. The dual torchlights moved down rapidly. Another moment, and they would step out of the cover of trees into the parking lot.

Lisa turned the key in the ignition and flipped on all the sedan lights. The headlights blazed. Then she pounded the horn with her fist, and the parking lot exploded with loud alarms. Pay attention, men, she begged her friends silently as she pressed the gas pedal.

They did. The torchlights vanished. She backed away from the van to give herself room to maneuver, when the van's door opened. She hit the horn again, switched to the forward gear, and pointed the car at the first man who emerged from the van at a run. The distance to him was only a few meters. She plowed into him before he raised his gun. The car swerved, and the man flew sideways, landing on the asphalt with a thud. Lisa stopped the car, but not before she saw Petrel sprinting towards his enemies. James dashed after him. Neither had a gun, but both had knives in their hands. James always had a knife on his spelunking expeditions, and Petrel probably slept with his knife. She turned off the engine and dived into the back seat. There, she crouched on the floor. She had done all she could. Now it was up to the men.

Gun shots, thumps, and yells swirled around the sedan. One of the bullets hit the front window, and it burst into a shower of glass shards. The seat backs protected her somewhat, but one of the shards slashed her hand. She felt the sharp, hot sting and the welling of blood, even though she couldn't see anything. Win, win, win, she chanted silently, directing all her energy towards her friends. You have to win.

An eternity later—probably a few minutes—she heard Petrel's voice. "Lisa? It's over. Where are you?"

Have they won? She straightened slowly and climbed out of the car. The van's lights sprang to life. In the glow, the parking lot looked almost the same as in the daylight, except for the three motionless bodies, lying in awkward poses amid dark glistening puddles. James hopped out of the van. Both he and Petrel looked battered and bruised, but at least they were walking, unlike the others.

"Are they alive?" She nodded at the prone bodies.

"No," James said harshly. "He killed them all, cut their throats."

"I had no choice," Petrel said. He was already at Lisa's side, his eyes on her injured hand. "You're bleeding."

"He saved my life," James muttered. He didn't look at Lisa. "But now, we're guilty of a triple homicide."

"Petrel does that, saves lives," Lisa mumbled. She felt dizzy, swayed, and would've fallen, if Petrel didn't catch her.

He carried her to the van. "James," he called. "I need to bind her wound. Do you have a bandage?"

For the next several minutes, both men fussed around her, while she closed her eyes against the vertigo and let them do what they wanted. By the time her head stopped spinning, her hand was bandaged. It ached, but she could function again.

Reclining on the back seat of the van, she eyed her friends. "How are you both?"

"Fine," Petrel said. "You have the worst injury."

"Better than those kooks," James said glumly. He had a black eye and a scrape along his jaw but he didn't seem in too much pain. "We should call the police."

"Did you see any cars passing during the fight?" Lisa asked. "I was down in the sedan but I didn't hear anything."

"No," James said. "I didn't hear either. It's only been a few minutes."

"So nobody heard the shots," Lisa murmured. "Maybe, if we hide the bodies and the car, nobody would learn what happened here. At least not immediately. It's raining. By morning, it would wash away most of the blood."

"Where would we hide the bodies?" James swore. "I don't want to go to prison."

Petrel, who stayed silent until now, stirred. "We could take them back to Elfhome through the cave. Something would eat them," he offered.

Lisa and James gaped at him.

"You found the gateway? Why did it take so long?" Lisa demanded.

"The cave is expansive." James's eyes brightened. "We took several wrong turns before we found the right passage. It wouldn't take us as long the second time. Yes, it might work. Some monsters in those woods would have a nice dinner. But we have to do it now."

"Yes," Petrel agreed. "Now."

He lashed together two ofthe bodies, James hoisted the third one on his shoulder, and they lumberedtowards the cave again, carrying their gruesome burdens. Lisa went to clean upthe sedan of any identifying papers and of her fingerprints. She felt sickagain but for a different reason. James had a morbid sense of humor. Or maybeit wasn't humor, just fatigue, but the image of Elfhome monsters dining onhuman corpses span in her head. It would probably haunt her for a long time.