Leitner

^{by @dirge}

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.

^Source

My entry:

Benjamin was able to see a silhouette at the bottom of the crypt. Melinda? No! It was a rather coarse silhouette, not very funny, much taller than Melinda, but it was still familiar to him.

“I was sure you would come,” the deep and serene voice broke the silence betraying the identity of the silhouette that every second became more familiar in the middle of the penumbra.

Kauffman, damn it. How could I be deceived in this way? Leitner reacted to his insides.

“Well, I lost the bet,” A second voice appeared behind, near the entrance. The hitherto unnoticed presence closed the iron fence so that a cornered Benjamin Leitner could not escape, an action that was unnecessary, because he had the intention of getting to the bottom of the matter. Why all this farce? The letter, Melinda, the gold. What the hell was going on?

“What do you want?” said an immute Benjamin, his angry eyes twinkled in the darkness.

“You may have already realized that you have committed a great imprudence in coming here. Now we are sure that it is all true. It's you! together with that witch who caused the mysterious deaths of the unborn in the village. and now here, in the place where the remains of your ancestors lie, you will pay for your sins.”

A torch had been lit by the improvised jailer while Kauffman pulled out of his pockets a container of holy water and a small bag containing the remains of Benjamin's father.

Benjamin was standing in the middle of a circle drawn on the floor together with symbols of ancient runes. In the middle of all this embarrassing spectacle full of the grossest clichés he laughed out loud.

“You call me reckless and yet it is you who dare to confront me in the loneliest darkness and underground, using ruses that serve no purpose against someone of my ilk, you are insane.”

He took out his pipe and filled it with tobacco in front of a dubious Kauffman who was beginning to lament his actions, he lit it and inhaled an elongated, deep breath. A necessary pause to recover from the surprise given by this pair of individuals.

He breathed out! a lot of smoke began to come out of Benjamin's mouth, a smoke that began to mix with the shadows and covered everything around the crypt, the torch light went out, the silhouettes of the three men vanished and the darkness regained its place.

Ten o'clock in the morning, a crowd has gathered outside the bank, they have caught Mr. Kauffman, who all morning has tried to hang everyone who approaches him. Dementia! no doubt all that stress caused by being in charge of the main bank of Austria would be the main cause, The poor man never rested, now they have tied him, they get him in the car, they take him away.

This is a participation for the Finish The Story - Week #46 from @bananafish. I hope you like it there, do not hesitate to comment.