[Chapter 3] of [Book I likely won't finish]

All right. Tomorrow is a long wait and Chapter 2-2 isn't really a full chapter so here you go: chapter three. And now I really need to get back to working on this or I won't have a chapter 4 to show tomorrow.

Riz ended up at Mel's place anyway, but they didn't have sex. One reason was Ekko, who refused to tell them where they were from and what a leshen was until they agreed he could stay at the police office fort he night. The other was that Riz felt particularly stubborn about the events of the night. She knew what she'd seen, but Mel didn't seem to believe any of it, and that was fine, but it also meant she was in no mood to have sex or talk about their relationship (which Mel often tried after they had sex).

The next morning Riz was even grumpier than the day before (sleeping on a narrow couch will do that to you, but then again, it was her own fault), and only managed to put on fresh clothes when they came in the office (separately) at 6 AM. The clothes she'd kept in the office were too small and her chest (grown considerably since she'd started here) strained against the cloth until she left it open under her uniform jacket. It wasn't standard, it wasn't proper etiquette, but if she wanted a straightjacket, she'd go straight to Huber and tell him all about last night's campfire experience.

At the office, Ekko waited, and Deputy Hailey, a bear-like guy in his thirties, made a grimace at her as she arrived.

"Where'd you pick up that brat?" he said.

Ekko bared his teeth at him, and Riz shrugged. "Dark forest, north of Blackwater."

Hailey lifted an eyebrow, then seemed to think better of it. "Yeah, not gonna ask what you were doin' in a dark forest north of BW."

He left. Riz stared at Ekko and he stared back defiantely.

"Time to go," she said.

"No," he said.

"I have work to do, and this isn't a kindergarten. I'm gonna take you straight to school, or straight to your parents. Your choice."

He too, was wearing clothes that didn't fit, and it looked like one of the deputy guys had lent them to him.

"I'm not goin' anywhere."

"Wasn't a question," she said as she turned to make her way into the corridor, down into the parking lot to her car.

Ekko followed sullenly.

"Did you manage to get anything on camera?" she asked when he'd caught up to her and they were walking side by side.

"All white," he said. "I shouldn't'a used f."

"Hm," she said. Bummer.

At the door to the outside, she stopped, because he stopped.

"What?"

"I can help," he said.

"Help with what?"

"The leshen."

"You've said that word twice and I still don't know what it means," she said. She should've googled it, but in the (relative) safety of Mel's apartment she hadn't felt like unpacking all the crazy she'd seen. She really should have, though, then perhaps she would've slept better that night.

"I'll show you if you let me stay."

"Let you stay where? This isn't kindergarten. It's a police office." What else could she add? Ah, the adult card. "Your parents will be worried."

"No they won't." His eyes darkened. "Don't look at me like that. It's not like they neglect me or some shit. They think I'm at a friend's."

"Hm."

"I can help you with this case."

"Oh yeah? And what case is that, if you're so smart?"

"The leshen case!" he snapped.

"Still don't know what that is."

He made a noise somewhere between angry dog and angry cat, but more dog, and pulled his phone out of male-deputy Guile's pocket. In a few swipes he got what he wanted and held it up to Riz's nose.

"This is a leshen."

Riz stared at it. It was a drawing of a man-beast, a greyish-dark skinned man up to the neck, on which the white skull of an elk sat, and from the skull protruded red antlers. It was exactly what she'd seen, or thought she'd seen, on the road the night before. The two visions were uncannily alike when she layered them on top of each other before her inner eye.

Then her eyes caught something else on the bottom of the picture - like a signature.

"It says Witcher III fanart" she said, suddenly annoyed that he was wasting her time.

"So what?"

"So it's not real."

"You saw it yesterday!"

"I saw a person on the road" she said. "It was Mel."

It had to have been, didn't it? Mel had left her car and came down to collect them in the incline after she'd seen Riz's car stopped close-by. Whatever else she'd seen had to have been something pathological. Anger about the reports, about people like Henny Pipers, driving hands-unfree with their phones, had set her off, and she'd imagined whatever horns or antlers or dark mist. It must've been. Mel hadn't seen it and she'd arrived only a moment after Riz's flashlight went off.

Riz glanced at Mel at her desk, then away again.

What was she thinking about changelings? She'd known Mel about half a year now and there never were any sightings of strange creatures before last week. Besides, if Mel was a leshen, then she was hiding those antlers pretty well. Likely in her cleavage.

Riz sighed. "I'm not buying it."

"But it's right here!" He thrust out the phone towards her.

"I see an image drawn by a fan of something mythical creature out of a fantasy realm -"

"It's not fantasy, it's folklore of [eastern Europe]."

"Uh-huh," she said.

"Your name is Clarisse Hunter, isn't it?"

"Riz," she said, unsure in the next moment why she was telling him anything about her.

"Ok, then, Riz," he said. "I can help you find out where the creature is, what it likes, what it does -"

"You're a gamer."

At this, he pulled himself up straight (about chin-height compared to Riz) and, his eyes burning like (not devil's) embers, he declared, "I'm not a gamer. I'm a scientist."

Riz managed to stop a snort before it left her nostrils, with difficulty, and only because she didn't want to hurt the boy's sense of pride in whatever science class he achieved good grades in school.

"That's good," she said instead. "The world needs more scientists." She opened the door they'd been standing in front of and gestured outside. "Now, however, Einstein, you better get back to your studies."