Niémans is tracking a monk whose habit can be seen by the light of the moon. Niémans loses him, but finally catches up. Too late. Brother Guillaume is dying, but with his dying breath is able to say,« the sword and the snake» as he shows the palm of his left hand, tattooed in blue.

A large vineyard, during the grape harvest. A rose coloured chapel with a black bell tower is being renovated. A corpse is discovered with a battered head, and bleeding crotch. The man has been castrated. The murderer appears to have fled, knocking down one of the walls of the chapel, hence destroying a fresco.

Modernist architecture, systematic vandalism, the social paradise designed by some generic architect has mutated into a vile, miserable hell. While searching for drugs in the trash in an abandoned parking lot, “two hoods” discovering a severed hand, that of a child.

Hunting parties in the forest... But the corpse that is found is not of a deer, but a hunter. Horribly mutilated. His ribcage cut open, viscera torn out, multiple bite marks ... and as a final touch, an oak twig dipped in his own blood placed between his teeth. The victim is not just any young man. He was Jürgen von Geyersberg, the heir to one of the biggest fortunes in Germany, just across the border.