Chapter 1

A sudden shift in the spring breeze carried a whiff of boiling potatoes and grain mash with it. Vezirov Kasmerkhov's nostrils flared. His temper seethed. His tata, his father. Hollow promises from the man were nothing new, but the grain and potatoes…. The sonofabitch had broken his word. Their scant food stores that survived the harsh Romanian winter were being reduced to vodka.

Vezirov slapped the ends of the horse's reins around the plow's cross-support and ran across the freshly carved furrows of dirt. The acrid scent of induced fermentation, stronger with every stride, aroused an unfamiliar ache in his stomach. Not fear, not anger - - need. A need to taste, to wash himself, in death. The need clothed the insides of him, wriggled and writhed as he ran towards the ramshackle wood pole barn behind the hog pen.

The need pulled his hand to the sheathed knife on his leather belt. Charging into the building through an open door he saw tata, back to him, bent over a ten-liter iron kettle. The need growled in Vezirov's throat, glazed his vision with a frost of hate, eroded his thought until only one remained - - kill tata.

He leapt into the air so foul with the stench of boiling potatoes and mash, and landed with both booted feet on his father's back, which sent the gaunt man face first into the small fire fueled by wood scraps and burlap sacks. Momentum carried Vezirov to the ground, rolling, then to his feet. He whirled, knife in one hand and wiped away a droplet of drool with the other. His screaming prey clawed the dirt floor with yellowed fingernails, scraping up bits of soil to smother the red embers welded to its skin.

The need slowly stalked its prey, deriving warmth in the anticipated pleasure of the kill.