<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 90%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="color: #80BFFF">Aleksandr avoids his usual route home; which is a good idea in that it means he does not have to pass the grisly scene of Bratmil’s, and also a bad idea as the ritual has left him stoned and easily distracted from his surroundings. Twice he almost misses the turning towards his apartment complex, once he almost steps in front of a moving car. He is exhausted. He needs sleep. Most likely he will not go to work tomorrow, not after today and the energy taken by speaking with the fire. <br/><br/>Aleks isn’t concerned by the dark. Czernobog, the black god, is most at home in the dark and watches those who walk in it. Besides, Aleks has performed too many rituals in the small hours of the morning to be nervous alone at night, despite how peculiarly empty the streets are. <br/><br/>The fire escape that climbs his building is cluttered with boxes and random belongings, safety haphazardly ignored in favour of extending what little space people can etch out for themselves in a complex grown overcrowded and decrepit. Picking his way over and around ashtrays, plant pots and other assorted junk, Aleks does not see the red eyed figure perched atop the roof watching his ascent. He does feel the rash of goosebumps that suddenly creep along his arms, ripple up his back to crawl across his neck and skull like spiders. A section of cyrillic text tattooed on the flesh of his right forearm burns in warning; Aleks forms a <span style="font-style: italic">koza</span> with his right hand and presses the sign of the goat to the tattoo. The gesture is brief, passed off as the natural movement of scratching an itch. Aleksandr does not look around, simply climbs the deathtrap of a fire escape with single minded determination. <br/><br/>His windows are still locked and his wards whole - nothing has tampered with his home in his absence; but still the unease of being watched persists. <br/><br/>It is a strange thing to do - acting as though you are alone when you sense that you are not. Aleksandr has had practice, but the weirdness of his evening and the horror of his afternoon have left him feeling frayed around the edges. He needs to relax. <br/>Amongst the books, jars and candles that stuff his bookshelves is a small wooden box filled with carefully hand rolled blunts, given to him by a friend in exchange for a conception charm. She is expecting her first son in three months and Aleks has barely smoked half of her gift - he can only ingest so many different concoctions in one day. Today though, he makes a beeline for the box as soon as he clears the window frame into his apartment and collapses into an armchair, blunt in hand.   </span></span></span></div>