Benjamin Leitner, son of General Reinold Leitner, grandson of Count Dietrich Leitner, stepped from the stagecoach and lit his pipe. The night was cold, the sky a vast black emptiness. The moon, if it had shown itself at all that night, was gone, and nothing but the light cast by Benjamin’s lantern offered solace from the creeping dark.
He’d reached the graveyard, home of his family tomb and its historic dynasty. It was a forbidden place, the site of his late mother’s suicide, where Leitners were entombed stretching back centuries. He hated this place, more than anywhere else on earth. But he’d come, alone as ordered to. He’d come, as he had no other option but to do so. And he’d brought the gold.

The letter was written in her typical style. Loquacious, expounding on the nature of their relationship, apologizing for her affairs, thanking him for standing by her throughout it, remaining at her side despite all the controversy of the town. Despite even her own parents telling him to abandon her as a lost cause.

She’d not only dragged herself down into the mud. But him as well. Benjamin the financier, of Wolfstone and Kauffman, now the cuckold of all of Austria. But worst of all, she’d tarnished the name of Leitner.

And when the accusation came, of witchcraft and devilry, of black magic and the most bestial of sacrilege, of whoring in the night endowed with opiates unto madness. Well, it was no wonder when Kauffman wanted out.

And still he stood by her.

Should he have been surprised when the letter came, demanding the last of his finances or else she’d accuse him in the papers of having masterminded it all? Of being an original scholar of the black arts?
That would render the Leitner name into devilry.

No. He couldn’t allow that.

Benjamin finished his pipe, the tobacco charred and ashen. He cast the ash into the wind then slipped the cherry wood pipe into his coat pocket, beside the letter crested with her seal.

Melinda. Oh, you wench.

I’ll be in the crypts, waiting.

He suspected she wasn’t alone. Benjamin suspected the whole carnal tribe to be down there, waiting for her.

Well, so much the better. Let them all wait for his arrival. Let them all see the truth, the forbidden history denied to the world. Stretching back into the foundation of the soil. Let them know who it was that the Leitner’s may be.

He stepped across the grass, peering at the graves of his forbears till he reached the central crypt. The iron gate was ajar and the darkness seemingly impenetrable. They were down there, waiting for him.

“Melinda,” Benjamin said to himself. “It could have been different. So different. But you threatened my name. For that, I cannot forgive you.”

He entered the crypts.

“Time to meet the family,” he thought to himself, almost with a laugh.

The belly sound of his heels echoed in the dead silence while he was passing through the crypt. Shudder that weak alighted tombs caused didn't daunt him. Melinda's tombstone finally was in front of him. He instinctively lifted the lantern and lighted around to make sure he was alone.

The time has come.

He lowered the lantern and laid his hands on the tombstone edge. All his weight he relied upon it and started to push out. The friction of the tombstone sounded like a stilly titter. He stopped, took the lantern and lighten around. He heard some silent whisper, but he couldn't see anyone.

"Who's there?" He asked.

All he could hear was just the echo of his voice. He stood for a while listening to the dark, but only the dead silence could be heard.

He lowered the lantern, underneath the coat he took a hawthorn stake and put it down beside the tomb. He continued to push out the tombstone. He stopped once again after he heard the titter. He didn't care about tittering afterwards. He opened the tomb enough to see Melinda's body and took the lantern and hawthorn stake.

The party is over, Melinda.

He put the lantern on the tombstone, took the hawthorn stake by both hands and raised it up to jab Melinda's heart. But, Melinda wasn't there. The tomb was empty.

The loud screaming laugh cut the air. The sound of flapping wings grouted the crypt. He rose the lantern to see what's happening. There were bats flying haywire. Soon the bats formed a circle and flew over the crypt centre.

What a shit...

Bats flew down to the floor and turned into people. He squeezed the hawthorn stake like a battle spear. One woman stepped to the circle of people and started to dance leisurely. The others were waging in the circle in the rhythm of her dance.

It's Melinda. This is the dance of the vampires.

The choir of the vampires sang some song and Melinda hovered up. He stood like frozen.

"Let's gangbang him," Melinda said pinting to Benjamin.

All the vampires turned to him.

"Vade retro Satanas!" He pointed the hawthorn stake to them.

The vampires were laughing and running around him, while he twisted the hawthorn stake from one vampire to another. Some of the vampires turned into the bats, flew for a while and turned into the vampires again. Their game drove him in confusion. From time to time he'd feel a vampire breath on his neck. Then he'd hit the vampire who was trying to bite him. He waved the hawthorn stake around and somehow succeeded to run out of the crypt.

The day after he was at the rail station waiting for the train to Belgrade, Serbia. There he should take a stagecoach to Majdanpek, the town in the region that has a long tradition of vampires and their slaughters.