Lisa's bucket list: "I wish my sister Marina wins her battle with cancer."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lisa turned on her phone as soon as the Bard on the Beach performance of The Tempest ended. She panned in a circle, recording the applauding audience and an occasional snobbish grimace before she concentrated on the stage.
When the actors filed out of the wings for their third curtain call, people began getting out of their seats. The evening was almost over, but she kept on filming, when a young man with long oily hair elbowed his way through the leaving crowd and climbed onto the stage.
Prospero smiled at him, but the youth didn't acknowledge the welcome. He whipped out an automatic weapon from beneath his windbreaker, pointed at the actors, and started shooting. The actors fell. Blood pooled on the brightly lit stage. The rifle swung towards the audience, and the throng of happy Shakespeare lovers turned into a milling stampede.
Lisa froze. She couldn't escape from her middle seat anyway. To her right and to her left, in front and behind, people shouted, pushed, and shoved. Some tried jumping over the seats or climbing over the heads. Others disappeared under the rushing feet. Terrified screams from many throats reverberated between the canvas walls, together with the gun's rhythmic rapping.
Lisa's shaking hands still held her phone. The gunman's face on her phone's screen looked distorted, his mouth open, but she couldn't hear his screams beyond the roar of the crowd. The gun swerved right and left, until it pointed straight at her. She was going to die, but she wasn't afraid. Maybe her fear glands hadn't caught up with the horror. Would anyone find her phone after she died? Her interest felt clinical, detached.
Suddenly another person leaped into the frame of her screen, between the gun and herself, a guy in a white shirt, jeans, and a gray Sikh turban. He tackled the gunman. They both tumbled to the stage, and the gun went quiet, although Lisa's ears still rang from the pandemonium of the audience.
On her phone screen, a knife flashed in the Indian guy's tanned hand, descended, and vanished again. He stood up, his white shirt reddening rapidly over one shoulder. One of the bullets probably hit him, but he didn't seem to notice. He kicked the limp body of the gunman, glanced at the fleeing audience, and his lips curled in distaste. Then he sprinted towards the back of the stage, where a large gap in the back canvas wall of the tent opened up to the night sky and the mountains. In another moment, he disappeared from view.
Lisa turned off her phone. By now, most of the audience cleared the front below the stage, but the terrified mobs still roiled near both exits. Several bleeding bodies sprawled in awkward poses on the seats and in the aisles. A few people called 911, screaming for the police to hurry. A couple started back towards the blood-splattered stage.
Lisa grabbed her bag, dropped the phone inside, and darted towards the stage too. She couldn't help any of the victims, but she wanted to talk to the rescuer in the turban. He had doubtlessly saved her life, together with many others, and she wanted to thank her savior face to face. Maybe even interview him for her film.
She tiptoed around the stage, where a gruesome tragedy had wiped off the joy of the Bard's story. Her eyes trained firmly on the natural backdrop of the night sky behind the stage, away from the bloody bodies. Her stomach churned. In the back, a short wooden staircase, faintly lit by the light from the stage, led into shadows.
She hurried down the stairs. Where was he? A wire fence stretched in front of her, separating the Bard's compound from the grassy shore and the waters of the False Creek. A lone figure in the white shirt and turban headed away from the fence, towards the access road. How had he gotten over the fence? It was at least as tall as she was. Had he jumped over it? He probably could—he had vaulted up to the stage, hadn't taken the stairs.
No, there was an opening in the fence, and a loose wire flap clicked softly in the breeze. Lisa squeezed through and ran after him.
"Wait, please," she called.
Behind her, the police sirens exploded.
He turned. The front of his shirt sported a large shiny stain, black in the darkness under the trees. "What?"
"I wanted to thank you." She stumbled to a halt in front of him. "You saved my life. And many others." Her thanks sounded inane, but she pressed on. "You're injured. You need a doctor. Why did you run away?"
"I don't need a doctor. It's not serious, only a graze. It'll stop bleeding soon. And... I don't wish to talk to the police." He spoke English with a faint accent.
"I understand. Me neither. Do you have a car? Can you drive?"
He gazed at her, his dusky face wearing an arrested expression.
"I mean," she floundered. To hell with it. She would just tell him the truth, not invent some noble reasons. "Uh, I want to help you, if you need my help, that is. Also, I was filming the whole thing. We can't film the shows, it's not allowed, but I filmed the bows and the costumes and I got the entire attack on film. I thought maybe I could, you know, film an interview with you. It's for my school project. Would you call me when you feel better? I won't disclose your name if you don't want it. Here is my card. Please."
He took the card without looking at it. He wouldn't be able to read it in the dark anyway. Lisa started to turn, to leave him to his business, when he stopped her. "Wait."
"Yes?"
"I don't have a car. And I don't really have a place to go." He seemed embarrassed. "My plane landed this afternoon. I wanted to see this show. I thought I would get to a hotel afterwards, but now... I don't think it is a good idea. They would see me in this bloody shirt and call the police. Would it be possible... if you have a place I could spend the night? One night only. I do need your help. What is your name?"
"Lisa. What is yours?"
"Petrel."
"Like a bird?" She smiled. The tiny petrel so didn't fit this tall and handsome fellow. "Yes, I have a car and I have a couch. You can crash on it. Come on, Petrel."
"Thank you, Lisa." He fell into step beside her. Was she crazy, she wondered, inviting a man she didn't know into her home? Well, she did know something. He had risked his life to stop a terrorist. He was athletic, young, and gorgeous, from his chiseled profile to his long shapely legs. And he was a tourist.
"Where are you from?" she asked.
"New York."
"Oh, an American. You're probably used to terrorist attacks. You knew exactly what to do. In Canada, we don't have such shootings. Everyone was scared shitless."
"I noticed."
Silence stretched for a while, before he said quietly. "I'm not an American."
"From Europe? Or India?"
"No. I'm an elf."
Lisa stopped as if she walked into a wall. Turned. Stared. He stopped as well and stood still, enduring her perusal. An elf? Was the guy pulling her leg? By now, they left the Bard tents behind and hiked along the beach towards her car. The dim streetlights allowed her to see his huge exotic eyes, although she couldn't see their color, and his neat turban. He didn't look like any elf she had seen on TV. He looked like an actor or a model, beautiful and fit despite the bloody short.
Currently, only a couple dozen elves resided on Earth, the ones that had come on tourist visas from Elfhome a few months ago and got stuck, when the Chinese gate in orbit disintegrated and their once-a-month way back to Elfhome was destroyed. She had seen the news. Some of the elves traveled, but most stayed together in New York, waiting for the reopening of the gateway, although nobody knew when and how. What were the odds that one of them would be standing beside her on a Vancouver backstreet, waiting to get into her car, into her home, onto her couch?
Of all the questions swirling in her head, only one made it out of her mouth. "Why are you wearing the turban, if you're an elf? I thought you were Indian."
"It's a disguise," he said quietly. "Everyone who sees it thinks I'm from India. Works like magic. I have a selection of hats to hide my ears, but the turban is the best."
"O-o-okay." Lisa started walking again, and he followed. "Why do you need a disguise?"
"I'm on a secret mission. The fewer people know about it, the better my chances of keeping it from our ancient enemies."
"Right," Lisa said faintly. A secret mission? Ancient enemies? It sounded like a Hollywood track, but so did the entire elven situation. Still, she wasn't sure she believed him. She kept glancing at him during their ride home. Had she invited a delusional guy into her apartment? How could she get rid of him now without being horribly rude? He didn't initiate a conversation, just gazed at the streets flowing past the car window.
As soon as they got inside the door, he asked to use the shower. She gave him a fresh towel and a tube of aloe vera gel for his wound, and then fiddled with her phone while she waited. Should she call the police after all?
Only when he came out, she finally believed him. He hadn't only washed up but also discarded his turban. His sharp elven ears stuck out above his gorgeous ash-blond hair, plaited into four long braids. Elaborate tattoos in white ink covered his muscled arms. He had disposed of his bloody shirt, and the angry scrape on his shoulder looked painful, although it had already stopped bleeding. Despite his injury, he looked so yummy, Lisa yearned to lick him, all his beautiful, sculptured body, from the top of his ears to the tips of his toes. He had removed his sneakers too and stood barefoot in front of her like a living piece of art. She wanted to film him.
"What do I do with the towel and my shirt?" he asked. "They're soiled with my blood. They should be destroyed."
Destroyed? Only then Lisa remembered the human-elven treaty. No elven genetic material was allowed on Earth. The elves were immortal. What if Petrel's blood could help her sister?
"Of course. I'll deal with it," she said hurriedly, afraid he would guess her thoughts. If he did, he would probably leave her house. She couldn't allow that. She should keep him here for the night, feed him a dose of painkillers to knock him down, and take his blood for her sister while he was unconscious. "I'll burn this later." She stuffed his bloody shirt and the towel into a plastic bag.
He didn't pay attention to her fumbling, studying instead her bookshelf with its row of photographs. "Who is this girl? What's wrong with her?"
"It's my sister, Marina. She's ten. When she was six, she was diagnosed with cancer." Lisa swallowed a lump in her throat. "She's dying."
Whatever it took, she would get his immortal blood for Marina. It might not help but it shouldn't hurt. The worst that could happen: Marina would die quickly after such a transfusion, but she would die anyway in a few months. The poor girl was in constant pain. Every time Lisa visited, she wanted to howl at her own helplessness. Last time she had been there, Marina conducted an intense Q&A session about suicide. Despite her age, she knew that neither her mother nor her sister could help her die—they would go to prison. Assisted suicide was illegal in Canada.
"What is cancer?" Petrel's tight words intruded on her contemplation.
"It's a deadly disease. It kills."
He looked at her, his stormy-gray eyes disturbed. "She is so small. I've never seen such small children before I came to Earth."
Lisa sighed. "I don't have any clothing your size. Tomorrow, I'll buy you something."
He looked embarrassed. "I have clothes. I left my bag at the theatre, in the bag room. I still have a tag." He produced a crumpled paper tag from his pocket.
"Oh, good. I'll retrieve it tomorrow," Lisa said. "Are you hungry?"
He eyed her with such hope in his huge eyes, she laughed. "I'll make a frozen lasagna."
"Wonderful," he said.
"You can watch TV while it cooks," she suggested. She wanted him away from her kitchen.
He smiled brilliantly and promptly turned on the TV.
Lisa took a frozen lasagna out of her freezer. She glanced back at Petrel, but he was fully engrossed in some game show. She opened her medicine cabinet and retrieved a bottle of morphine tablets. She had filled her sister's prescription at the Cancer Center yesterday and was going to take it to her mother's house tomorrow. As quietly as she could, she ground one tablet. Then she looked at her guest's big body, full of vitality, and ground the second one. He never glanced back at her. She released her pent-up breath, sprinkled the white powder on the frozen lasagna, and stuck it into the oven. Hopefully, the morphine's sleep-inducing power wouldn't be diminished by the high temperature.
While the lasagna cooked, and Petrel was busy with the show, Lisa checked her supplies. She still had most of the medical paraphernalia from the times when Marina had stayed with her occasionally. It hadn't happened in the past year—the girl had been too sick to leave home—but her few remaining intravenous kits were still in their sterile packages. She would use one to draw the elf's blood.
When her doctored lasagna was ready, she served him, afraid to hope.
"Will you join me?" he asked.
"No. I'm not hungry. Bon appetite." She smiled with a false reassurance.
"Okay. Thank you." He devouredthe whole lasagna without reservation, joked and laughed with her, and then,between one moment and the next, dropped into a deep sleep. It took Lisa lessthan twenty minutes to fill two pouches with his blood. He didn't stir at theprick of the needle. She was as good at this medical stuff as any nurse, eventhough she had never studied nursing, just practiced on her little sister. Afterwards,she stored the blood in the fridge, cleaned up, and fell asleep herself.