Evangelium - Book 1 E-Book

Laporte Gilbert

• Herausgeber: Le Tram Noir - INT
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Evangelium
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 169

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A string of murders motivated by the theft of ancient manuscripts...

Galilee, Battle of Hattin, July 1187. A dying Knight Hospitaller confides to a young monk the secret existence of gospels whose content calls into question the traditional image of Christ. Nearly nine centuries later, Lieutenant Martin Delpech investigates a series of assassinations motivated by the theft of ancient manuscripts. He must follow the trail of a fundamentalist psychopath who seems to have risen from the dead, facing down a savage competition between Vatican henchmen, religious extremists, and an ancient messianic sect. Their struggle for supremacy and control of knowledge will be bloody. Nightmarish. And even the police officer will not escape this violence. He will be forced to participate, to save his loved ones.

Meet Lieutenant Delpech in the first volume of a thrilling new investigation, confronting him with the violence of a fundamentalist psychopath, Vatican henchmen, religious extremists, and a messianic sect. Will he manage to escape this nightmarish struggle?

WHAT THE CRITICS THINK

A deep dive into the world of Catholic fundamentalism. For those with a thirst for theology.- HannibaLectrice, Babelio

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gilbert Laporte was born in Paris and lives in the south of France. He completed his higher education in Nice and worked as an executive at several large companies. He divides his leisure time between reading history, cinema, music, travel, and writing.

Leseprobe

Cover

Title page

Prologue

VERTIGO

After slipping, he received a blow to the temple.

Violent.

Then, he felt a pain.

Intense.

Finally, there was the fall into darkness.

Dizzying…

…

..

.

Part One

POST MORTEM

«He is risen and he is gone. If you do not believe me, bend down and look at the place where he lay. He is not there, for he is risen and has gone to where he was sent.»

(Apocryphal Gospel of Peter “circa the mid-2nd century).

1

INCUBUS

Where am I?

As he gradually regained consciousness, a pitch-black darkness surrounded him. The darkness was so intense that he had to blink to ensure his eyes were indeed open. Only then did he realize he was lying on a kind of thick mat with a spongy texture.

Spongy and undulating.

Intrigued, he sat up and plunged his hand into what constituted his bedding. He pulled out a handful of organic matter that squirmed sluggishly between his fingers.

Worms!!!

Frightened, he flung the vile earthworms and white larvae as far away from himself as possible and jumped to his feet. He immediately wiped his hands on the sides of his jeans with a disgusted look.

How horrid!

He then felt something crawling insidiously under his clothes and in his hair. He hurriedly took off his shirt and used it to brush off the invertebrates of all sizes that were writhing on his body.

This is disgusting!

His heart raced and his breath became frantic as he fumbled around himself, trying to escape the repulsive environment he found himself in. His fingers almost immediately encountered a rusty metallic surface that seemed curved from bottom to top.

Where the hell am I?!

He cautiously moved forward, following the wall.

Where does this lead?

With each step he took, the man crushed a thick layer of worms of all lengths, creating an excruciating squelching noise. He continued his blind exploration and quickly circled the space where he was. It must have measured no more than three meters wide by six long. The place was devoid of openings and apparently shaped like a tank.

Am I trapped? …

He desperately searched for an exit above and eventually his hands found a wide pipe. It suddenly opened, and a torrent of cold water poured down on him. He was suffocated, then began to panic.

My God, I’m going to drown!!!

He felt the water level rising in the tank along his legs.

The worms rose too, floating on the surface.

This can’t be happening!!!…

Within minutes, the liquid reached his neck. The writhing mass now brushed against his face. He screamed and pounded on the wall for help. However, he quickly had to face the reality that his efforts were in vain. He continued to search blindly for another exit above.

There was none.

Trapped!

He was indeed a prisoner. The water (and especially the worms!) was now at mouth level. He took a deep breath. The disgusting creatures wriggling around him tickled his eyelids and lips, and some even entered his ear canals. His lungs began to scream for oxygen. The veins in his neck and temples were bulging.

Air!!!

Panic set in. He could no longer hold his breath. He clenched his teeth.

No! No! Hold on!

It was becoming impossible. Unbearable. He was on the verge of drowning.

Hold your breath!!! Just a little longer…

He mentally cracked. It was beyond his strength.

NOOOOOOON!!!

Clouds of bubbles escaped from his lips.

NOO…

He inhaled a large amount of water through his nose and mouth, along with countless round, smooth, or segmented worms that continued to wriggle in all directions. Then, he was seized by a brutal succession of convulsions and vomiting, unable to catch his breath for a single moment…

He was about to die in the most disgusting way imaginable when…

… his nightmare suddenly ended.

Thiébaud Raquin awoke gasping, in a hallucinatory state. His dream had felt so realistic that his sweaty body was still shaking with nervous spasms.

Always this damned nightmare…

It took him several minutes to calm his frantic heart and return to reality.

Always the same dreadful dream…

These images had haunted him since childhood. They had haunted his nights regularly ever since he fell into an old cistern when he was a child. But this time, he had not woken up under a warm comforter in a cozy room.

NO.

The gag that had been shoved between his teeth and tightly tied behind his neck prevented him from catching his breath properly. Strips of strong adhesive tape had also been stuck in a cross over each of his eyelids, plunging him before a black screen where he had replayed that old familiar drowning scene in a tank.

He knew he was only emerging from one nightmare to fall back into another. Unfortunately, this time it was all too real. A situation far more barbaric than the scariest of his hallucinations.

He’s going to hurt me again…

2

DESERTUS

Galilee, Battle of Hattin, July 1187

On land scorched by a relentless sun, the thousands of men of the army of the King of Jerusalem, Guy de Lusignan, were laboriously advancing towards the Sea of Galilee. The troops carried with them a relic of the Holy Cross that usually galvanized the fighters, but the Lord seemed to have abandoned them in recent days.

The oppressive heat prevailing in these desolate lands was suffocating. Exhausting. Unbearable.

Better to die in battle!

Like many knights, the templar had removed his heavy helmet and chain mail and had hung them on his horse’s saddle. The metal of this essential protective layer turned into an oven under the merciless sun of the Galilee. Many foot soldiers without mounts collapsed from exhaustion on the ground. The path taken by the army was thus strewn with exhausted fighters doomed to die slowly of thirst.

Drink…

The templar had not drunk for nearly two days and had sweated so much that his blood pressure was dropping, giving him terrible dizziness. To avoid falling, he had to cling tightly to the saddle of his faithful horse, which was also in a pitiful state and dragging its back right leg.

You will never see your land again…

His native Burgundy was so far away…

The knight of the Temple inwardly cursed the troops of Saladin who had attacked the fortress of Tiberias. Guy de Lusignan had fallen into his trap by deciding to come to its aid. The order to march had unfortunately been given on the first of July, under scorching heat, to cross the vast desolate plain of Toran.

Very quickly, the light cavalry of the Saracens had harassed the vanguard and rear guard of the Christian army. Fighting was all the more exhausting for them as their water supplies had run out, Saladin having filled in or poisoned all the wells in the vicinity. Guy had thus decided to head towards the Sea of Galilee, so that his soldiers could refill their water skins, but the path to get there proved perilous.

Survive…

In the meantime, they had to hold on and forget the thirst that gnawed at their throats…

The most painful part was suffering without being able to fight. This ignited a rage in the templar’s belly. He dreamed of settling the score, but the cowardly enemy remained invisible.

“Saracens, may God curse you!” he muttered between his teeth.

The burning desert wind dried his tongue and lips. The relentless sun blinded him, scorching his eyes.

Advance…

A single obsession: to reach the lake to dip his head and gorge himself on fresh, clear water.

Advance…The access road to Tiberias crossed an arid landscape, only dotted with sparse dry and dusty grass. The journey seemed endless.

Advance…Exhausted, the knight gradually drooped over the neck of his horse. However, he had barely dozed off when an alarm rang and abruptly jolted him from his stupor.

“The horn is sounding!”

The squire who had cried out at the sound of the horn pointed to a rise in the terrain from which numerous silhouettes emerged against the light. In a matter of moments, the sky darkened. A cloud of arrows rained down on the troops.

The templar heard a whistling that made him turn his gaze towards the hill. It was a grave mistake. A bolt pierced his left eye and ended its course with a sharp thud in the back of his skull.

The pain was not immediate. He felt a dull thud inside his head. Paradoxically, he initially felt a blow at the back of his skull. The speed of the projectile caused him to fall backward. Paralyzed by the violence of the impact and the intense sensation of tearing that now radiated through him, he fell heavily to the side of his horse and landed face down on the ground.

None of his fellow soldiers moved to help him; each was trying to protect themselves from the deadly rain. Many were struck by the heavy shower of arrows that flew in curved lines.

They were thus mowed down by the dozens, like defenseless animals.

A rider cursed in helplessness as he saw an arrow graze his chest:

““Infamous cowards”

A little further away, a sergeant hit in the right thigh was less elegant:

“Sons of bitches!”

Men were now falling in whole clusters. The lords had to react immediately to prevent the army from being exterminated.

A baron stood up in his stirrups and called out to those around him.

«Frenchmen, Normans, Angevins; take up your arms!”

The knights and foot soldiers quickly regained their composure and regrouped into two imposing masses. A templar pointed his sword at the top of the dunes from where the arrows were coming.

“We are His knights! Hardy and brave!”

An almost savage cheer erupted from every mouth, raising the war cry as they brandished their swords that sparkled in the sun’s rays.

““Montjoie!”

They charged courageously, but alas far too slowly. The heavy warhorses, already exhausted by the heat, sank their hooves deeply into the sandy ground. As they progressed up the hill, the power of the crusaders’ charge clearly became less effective. However, they cared little, as the thirst for combat was intense.

“The pagans are fleeing!”

Upon reaching the top of the slope, they could only see that the infidels had retreated to rain arrows down on them once again, a few dozen meters away. The cavalry charged many times. To no avail.

Unfortunately for them, the scenario repeated itself. Heavy cavalry attacks, usually effective at breaking through grouped infantry lines, proved useless against a lightly armed enemy on horseback, who quickly fled before contact only to decimate them from a distance on the summit of a neighboring hill.

King Guy had no choice. They had to continue bravely toward the lake until his troops quenched their thirst and found firm, flat ground, more suitable for a frontal charge. He gave orders to stop seeking close combat, so that the infidels would approach and not have time to turn back. He thus ordered the ranks to close and advance at a slow trot toward the plateau that stretched beyond the dunes.

“Hold your horse’s reins tightly”

They must not scatter on the battlefield and exhaust themselves in useless attacks. As for fleeing, it would surely only lead to a coward’s death. They would be shot down, one by one, by an arrow in the back. They had to continue down the road, at all costs.

“Stay on the battlefield, lest we be defeated!”

The arrows continued to strike them in bloody waves. They held on as best they could, shields raised for protection and eyes fixed on their objective.

The plateau was approaching, far too slowly, but it was approaching. The sparkling waters of the Sea of Galilee were in sight. Moreover, Guy was right; the Saracens, emboldened by this easy slaughter, had lost their caution and were coming closer and closer to tighten their grip.

“All are armed and ready for battle?”

The infidels were now within reach. The crusaders would soon finish bending under the arrows of these cowards who refused to fight in close combat. Once the ranks were joined, Guy gave the order to attack.

“Montjoie! Saint-Denis!”

The war cry was echoed by all mouths eager to return the blows received. The sound of hundreds of galloping horses thundered in the silence of these desolate places. The mass of steeds launched at full speed and pressed against one another seemed irresistible and would trample the opposing line like a straw.

It was not to be.

Certainly, a few riders were surprised and knocked over by the impetuous force of the attack, but many had time to turn and flee on their swift Arab horses accustomed to the desert heat. They quickly reformed their encirclement a little further away.

The battle was lost before it even began. It had to be acknowledged.

Worse. The enemy was beginning to set fire to the brush to blind and suffocate them.

The panic would have been total if the Franks had known at that moment that the rear guard had already been crushed about two leagues away. Composed mainly of stragglers and foot soldiers of poor combat quality, it had rapidly diminished under frequent, brief charges from the Saracen cavalry, followed by a general attack from poorly armed infantry that vastly outnumbered them and were significantly more mobile.

Once the battle was won, the victorious Saracens hastened to join the cavalry vanguard to flank them. On the abandoned battlefield, death and desolation reigned. Most of the corpses and dying wounded littered the stony banks of a river with a dried-up bed. In the midst of this apocalyptic vision appeared the red tonsure of a corpulent young monk, dressed in shabby sandals and his summer ecclesiastical robe. He was diligently going from body to body to deliver the last rites to the few survivors.

A little further back, a Hospitaler knight, hit in the abdomen, crawled grimacing in pain to shelter in the shadow of a rock. Out of breath, he leaned against it and examined his wound by lifting his chain mail. He realized that the point of the enemy’s lance had slipped under his hauberk and perforated his intestine.

He understood that he was lost. Moreover, death would be slow and painful. Lifting his head, the brother knight saw the churchman and called out to him.

“Come here, young monk!”

He had to absolutely confide a secret in his possession in him before passing away.

He had to, for the love of God Almighty.

3

PHANTASMA

Paris, present day. A winter evening.

Mélodie Bélanger had no idea of the terrible fate that awaited her that night.

A petrifying destiny of horror.

There were circumstances, like the one approaching, where an ordinarily mundane daily life could suddenly plunge into the worst of situations.

At the most unexpected moment.

A brief instant during which a woman’s worst fears materialized into a savage reality that surged from the depths of the night.

Very soon.

As usual, it was late when this mother of two stepped out of the Gambetta metro station, her forty-six tired years weighing heavily on her. She took a commercial street, Rue des Pyrénées, still adorned with the traditional festive lights of the end-of-year holidays. Her path then led her to veer towards Rue Stendhal, flanked by mundane residential buildings that marked the monotonous daily route she had taken for many years.

Mélodie adjusted her faux fur hat and her thick wool scarf to shield herself from the biting cold and the snowflakes that danced capriciously in all directions. With a graceful gesture, she tamed a rebellious brown lock that stubbornly sought to escape from her hat.

As she progressed, the noise from the intersection faded, and the street became increasingly deserted. The ground was carpeted with a pristine layer of white tinted by the yellow of the streetlights, and even the low-hanging clouds seemed to gain a bit of warmth.

Mélodie loved walking on layers of fresh, silky snow. She experienced a fleeting pleasure in traversing this virgin blanket that temporarily covered the darkness of the asphalt of Parisian roads. To avoid slipping or missing the edge of a sidewalk, she advanced cautiously through the beauty of this treacherous powder and cursed herself internally for having chosen heeled shoes in such a freezing period.

Exhausted by her long workday and a grouchy boss who already considered her too old, Mélodie was eager to return to the warmth of her home. Finally, the warmth central heating… for she knew in advance that her husband would barely lift his head from his sports routine upon hearing her enter, to launch his usual: whatarewehavingtoeat?

As for her twins, she would inevitably see her two cyborg boys glued to their computer screens, shaking their video game around controllers like they were having epileptic fits.

Clones of their father in technological form, in a way…

Fortunately for Mélodie, her acne-ridden offspring were on vacation this week at their grandparents’, which promised her a few peaceful moments until the weekend. Evenings of reading a good novel that would not be regularly interrupted by screams caused by precarious situations in front of goals or by the whistling of laser beams and explosions of spaceships.

It’s crazy how testosterone can make one so primal…

The worst part of this mundane existence was that she still feared her husband would leave her for some younger bimbo. The banal obsession shared by all women approaching fifty, watching in terror as their friends got divorced for because of a younger blonde with a big chest.

Mélodie took a deep breath of fresh air to dispel her gloomy thoughts. The ringing of her phone joyfully chimed in her bag. She reluctantly removed the leather glove from her right hand to more easily grab the device and then pick up.

““Hello?”

““It’s me, honey.”

““What’s going on?”

““I’m going to be late tonight; I’m calling you from the airport. I’m sorry… a big contract to sign tomorrow at dawn in Bordeaux… so don’t wait for me to eat.”

““Again!”

She sighed her displeasure, which transformed into icy mist as it left her pursed lips.

““I know… there’s nothing I can do about it, honey. An important contract is at stake. I might get fired if I lose it. There are plenty of young guys with sharp teeth just waiting to take my job. But I promise I’ll hurry to get home as early as possible tomorrow. Kisses.”

Mélodie hurriedly slid her phone back into her bag. Her fingers were already frozen, and she blew on them to try to warm them up a bit before putting her glove back on.

Her husband’s travelling was becoming increasingly frequent and creating tension within the couple. She hated being neglected. The kids weren’t around, so she thought she might take advantage of it to have a nice, quiet evening reading a book to the backdrop of classical music.

And then, I might also make myself a nice hot herbal tea…

She relaxed at the thought of this peaceful moment. After a few meters, however, an unpleasant feeling of being followed pulled her out of her domestic thoughts. A strange sensation, almost physical, had engulfed her. As if the inquisitive gaze of an observer accompanied her and had the power to brush her back from a distance.

She glanced furtively behind her.

Nothing…

There wasn’t a soul in sight. Just an ordinary urban landscape frozen by the winter temperature.

Shrugging off her unjustified fear, she continued her walk for about twenty meters, still trying to quicken her pace on the treacherous ground.

However, she continued to be bothered by the persistent sensation of being watched.

Spied on…

Mélodie turned around.

The street was still empty.

However, something peculiar caught her attention. About thirty meters behind her, footprints duplicated her own, then suddenly turned toward the gate of a building.

She tried to reassure herself.

Probably someone who just went home…

Nothing abnormal, then.

Mélodie continued on her way, thinking about what she would prepare for dinner. Upon reaching the midpoint of the street, she thought she heard a muffled sound behind her and turned around again, just to be sure.

Of course…

She squinted to observe the dim corners.