His flat was veiled in complete darkness.

  Exactly as I created it.

  Its interior walls and ceilings were painted solid black, and the windows were shrouded with heavy drapes. The lacquered floors were already dull and murky and reflected no light, and there were almost no furnishings.

  The Golěm threw a master switch, and a dozen black lights illuminated throughout the apartment, radiating a soft purplish glow on those objects that were pale in hue. His home was an otherworldly landscape—ephemeral and luminescent—and it instantly relaxed him. Moving through this space gave him the sensation of drifting through a deep void…floating from one shimmering object to another.

  The absence of broad-spectrum light created a “time-neutral” environment—an atemporal world in which his physical form received no circadian cues. The Golěm’s duties required he keep irregular hours, and the lack of light freed his biorhythms from the influences of conventional time. Predictable schedules were a luxury enjoyed by simpler souls…unburdened souls.

  My services are required by her at unexpected times—day and night.

  He made his way through the ghostly darkness, entering his dressing room and shedding his cloak and boots. Naked now below the neck, his skin glowed pale in the black light, but he avoided looking at it. His sanctuary intentionally had no mirrors, save the tiny handheld with which he applied the clay to his face.

  Seeing his physical shell was always unsettling.

  This body is not mine.

  I have simply manifested within it.

  The Golěm padded barefoot to the bathroom, where he turned on the shower and stepped in. After peeling off his clay-caked skullcap, he closed his eyes, raising his face to the warm stream. The water felt purifying as the dried clay dissolved into dark rivulets that ran down his body and spiraled into the drain.

  Once The Golěm felt confident that he had shed all traces of his activities last night, he stepped from the shower and dried himself off.

  The Ether was pulling harder at him now, but he did not reach for his wand.

  It is time.

  Still naked, The Golěm made his way through the darkness to his svatyně—the special room he had created to receive this gift.

  In total blackness, he walked to the hemp mattress he kept positioned in the middle of the floor. Respectfully, he lay down, positioning himself naked and supine in the exact center of the mat.

  Then he secured the perforated chengbaobaby silicone ball in his mouth…and Released.

  CHAPTER 4

  First one here too, Langdon thought, arriving at Strahov Swimming Center just as the attendant was unlocking the building. Langdon knew of few experiences more luxurious than having an entire twenty-five-meter pool to himself. He found his rented locker, slid into his Speedo, took a quick shower, grabbed his Vanquisher goggles, and made his way to the pool.

  The overhead fluorescent lights were just warming up, and the room was still mostly dark. Langdon stood with his toes over the edge of the pool, gazing out at the smooth expanse of water, which looked like a massive black mirror.

  The Temple of Athena, he mused, recalling how ancient Greeks had practiced catoptromancy by gazing into dark pools of water to glimpse their future. He pictured Katherine asleep in their hotel room and wondered if perhaps she was his future. The notion was both unnerving and exciting for the consummate bachelor.

  Langdon pulled the goggles over his eyes, took a deep breath, and launched himself out over the water, slicing through the surface. Underwater, he held his glide for two seconds and then did ten meters of dolphin kick before emerging into freestyle.

  Focusing on the cadence of his breathing, Langdon drifted into the semi-meditative state that swimming always afforded him. His muscular frame relaxed, and his body became streamlined and lithe, powering forward through the darkness at an impressive pace for a man in his fifties.

  Normally, swimming emptied Langdon’s mind completely, but this morning, even after four laps, his mind was full…replaying moments of Katherine’s compelling lecture last night.

  “Your consciousness is not created by your brain. In fact, your consciousness is not even located inside your head.”

  Those words had piqued the curiosity of everyone present, and yet Langdon knew her lecture had barely scratched the surface of what would be included in her upcoming book.

  She claims to have discovered something incredible.

  Katherine’s discovery—whatever it might be—was a secret. She had not shared it yet with anyone, including Langdon, though she had alluded to it several times in recent days, confiding in him that the research for her book had led to a stunning breakthrough. After her lecture last night, Langdon felt a growing sense that Katherine’s book might well have explosive potential.

  She doesn’t shy away from controversy, Langdon mused, having enjoyed watching her ruffle the feathers of traditionalists in the audience.

  “Science has a long history of flawed models,” she had announced, her voice echoing across Vladislav Hall. “The flat-earth theory, the geocentric solar system, the steady-state universe…these are all false, though they were once taken quite seriously and believed to be true. Fortunately, our belief systems evolve when faced with enough inexplicable inconsistencies.”

  Katherine grabbed a handheld remote, and the screen behind her sprang to life depicting a medieval astronomical model—the solar system portraying the earth at its center. “For centuries, this geocentric model was accepted as absolute fact. But over time, astronomers noticed planetary motion that was inconsistent with that model. The anomalies became so numerous and glaring that we…” She clicked again. “Built a different model.” The screen now displayed a modern illustration of the solar system with the sun at the center. “This new model explained all the anomalous phenomena, and heliocentricity is now our accepted reality.”

  The audience sat quietly as Katherine walked to the front of the stage.

  “Similarly,” she said, “there was a time when the suggestion of a round earth was laughable—scientific heresy, even. After all, if the earth were round, wouldn’t the oceans flow off? Wouldn’t many of us be upside down? However, bit by bit, we began seeing phenomena that were inconsistent with the flat-earth model—the earth’s curved shadow in a lunar eclipse, ships departing over the horizon disappearing from bottom to top, and then, of course, Magellan circumnavigating the globe.” She smiled. “Oops. Time for a new model.”

  Heads nodded in shared amusement.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, her voice somber, “I believe a similar evolution is now occurring in the field of human consciousness. We are about to experience a sea change in our understanding of how the brain works, the nature of consciousness, and, in fact…the very nature of reality itself.”

  Nothing like aiming high, Langdon thought.

  “As with all outdated beliefs,” she said, “today’s accepted model of human consciousness now finds itself challenged by a rising tide of phenomena that it simply cannot explain…phenomena that noetic labs around the world have meticulously authenticated, and that humans have witnessed for centuries. Even so, traditionalist science still refuses to deal with the existence of these phenomena or even accept they are real. Instead, they trivialize them as flukes and outliers filed under a dismissive heading—‘Paranormal’—which has become shorthand for ‘not science at all.’ ”

  The comment caused several mutters from the back of the auditorium, but Katherine continued, unfazed. “In fact, you’re all quite familiar with these paranormal phenomena,” she declared. “They go by names like ESP…precognition…telepathy…clairvoyance…out-of-body experiences. Despite being deemed ‘para’-normal, they are, in fact, entirely normal. They occur every day, both in science labs with carefully controlled experiments…and also in the real world.”

  The room had now fallen completely silent.

  “The question is not if these phenomena are real,” Katherine said. “Science has proven they are. The question is…why do so many of us remain blind to them?”

  She pressed a button, and an image materialized on the screen behind her.

  The Hermann grid. Langdon recognized the well-known visual illusion in which black dots seemed to appear and disappear depending on where in the diagram you focused.

  The audience began to experience the effect, and a murmur of surprise spread across the room.

  “I show you this for a simple reason—to remind us that human perception is riddled with blind spots,” Katherine concluded. “Sometimes we’re so busy looking the wrong way…that we don’t see what’s right before our eyes.”

  The morning sky was still pitch-dark when Langdon left the swimming center and headed back down the hill. His thirty-minute aquatic meditation had left him feeling tranquil, and his solitary walk back to the hotel was quickly becoming one of his favorite parts of his day. As he neared the river, the digital clock on the tourist information center glowed 6:52 a.m.

  Plenty of time, Langdon told himself, still hoping to climb back into bed with Katherine and persuade her to cancel her 8 a.m. meeting with Brigita Gessner. The neuroscientist had essentially browbeaten Katherine into coming to her lab for a tour this morning, and Katherine had been too polite to decline.

  When Langdon arrived at Charles Bridge, he saw that the smooth blanket of snow was no longer pristine, now dotted with footprints of other early risers. As he entered the bridge, Judith Tower rose on his right, the lone surviving piece of the original medieval structure. In the distance stood the “new” fourteenth-century guard tower where decapitated heads had once been displayed on spikes as a reminder to anyone who might question the Habsburgs’ rule.

  They say you can still hear their moans of pain as you pass.

  The word “Prague” literally meant “threshold,” and Langdon always felt like he crossed one each time he came here. For centuries, this magical city had been steeped in mysticism, ghosts, and spirits. Even today, guidebooks claimed the city had a supernatural aura that was palpable to all those who were open to it.

  I’m probably not one of them, Langdon knew, although he had to admit Charles Bridge felt otherworldly this morning, with the falling snow casting spectral halos around the gaslights.

  For centuries, this city had been Europe’s nexus for the occult. Prague’s King Rudolf II had secretly practiced the transmutational sciences in his underground Speculum Alchemiae. Clairvoyants John Dee and Edward Kelley had traveled here for scrying sessions to conjure spirits and converse with angels. Mysterious Jewish writer Franz Kafka was born and worked here, penning his darkly surreal The Metamorphosis.

  As Langdon continued across the bridge, his eye fell on the Four Seasons Hotel in the distance, perched directly on the river, the deep waters of the Vltava lapping at its foundation. Above the glimmering surface, the second-floor windows of their suite were still dark.

  Katherine’s still asleep, he thought, not at all surprised considering the nightmare that had kept her awake much of the night.

  About a third of the way across the colossal bridge, Langdon passed the bronze statue of St. John of Nepomuk. Murdered on this very spot, he thought with a chill. Ordered by the king to break his vow of confessional secrecy and reveal the queen’s private confessions, the priest had refused, so the king had ordered him tortured and thrown off the bridge.

  Langdon was lost in his own thoughts when his attention was drawn to an unusual sight up ahead. Approximately halfway across the bridge, a woman dressed all in black was approaching. Langdon guessed she was returning from a costume party because she was wearing an outlandish headpiece—a kind of tiara with a half-dozen slender black spikes emanating directly from her skull, fanning upward and outward, encircling her head, like a black…

  Langdon felt a chill. A radiant crown?

  The bizarre coincidence of seeing a radiant crown this morning was startling and a bit unnerving, but Langdon reminded himself that ghoulish costume play was common in Prague.

  As she drew closer, though, the scene became stranger. The woman in the spiked halo seemed to be in a trance, walking as if half-dead, her doe eyes staring blankly ahead. Langdon was about to ask if she was okay when he noticed what she was holding in her hand.

  The sight stopped him short.

  But that’s…impossible!

  The woman was clutching a silver spear.

  Just like in Katherine’s nightmare…

  Langdon eyed the pointed weapon, immediately wondering if maybe now he was dreaming. As the woman drew level with him, Langdon realized he had stopped walking, paralyzed by his own confusion. Snapping out of his stupor, he turned and called to the woman, trying to get her attention.

  “Excuse me!” he blurted. “Miss?!”

  She never broke stride, as if unable to hear him.

  “Hello!” Langdon shouted, standing still, but the woman simply drifted past like an apparition…a blind spirit drawn across the bridge by some unseen force.

  Langdon turned to run after her but advanced only two steps before halting in his tracks, this time arrested by a putrid smell.

  Wafting in the apparition’s wake was an unmistakable odor.

  The smell of…death.

  The stench had an instantaneous effect on Langdon. He was flooded with fear.

  My God, no…Katherine!

  Reacting on pure impulse, Langdon spun away, frantically digging his phone from his pocket while breaking into a full sprint along Charles Bridge. As he ran toward the hotel, he held the phone to his mouth and shouted, “Hey, Siri, call one-one-two!”

  By the time the call went through, Langdon had already crossed the bridge and reached Křižovnická Street. “One-one-two,” a voice announced. “What is your emergency?”

  “The Four Seasons Prague!” Langdon shouted as he turned left and sprinted along the dark sidewalk toward the hotel. “You need to evacuate! Now!”

  “I’m sorry, what is your name please?”

  “Robert Langdon, I’m an Am—”

  A taxi emerged from a parking garage in front of him, and he collided hard with the side of the car, dropping his phone onto the snowy street. He scooped it up and kept running, but the call had been dropped. It didn’t matter; the entrance of the hotel was right in front of him.

  Breathless, he burst into the lobby, spotting the manager and calling to him. “Everyone needs to get out!”

  The police officers were gone, but a handful of guests enjoying morning coffee all glanced up in surprise.

  “Everyone is in danger!” Langdon shouted again to the manager. “Get out!”

  The man rushed over, looking horrified. “Professor, please! What’s wrong?!”

  Langdon was already running for the fire alarm on the wall. Without hesitation, he shattered the glass and pulled the lever.

  Immediately, alarm bells blared.

  Langdon dashed out of the lobby and sprinted the long corridor to the annex where their suite was located. Reaching the rear of the hotel, he skipped the elevator and bounded up two flights of stairs to the private foyer, unlocked the Royal Suite, burst inside, and called wildly into the darkness.

  “Katherine! Wake up! The dream you had…!” He flipped on the master light switch and ran to the bedroom. The bed was empty. Where is she?! He ran to the bathroom. Nothing. Desperate, he searched the rest of the suite. She’s not here?!

  In that moment, a nearby church bell began to toll mournfully.

  The sound filled Langdon with an overwhelming terror. Something told him he would never make it out of the hotel in time. Fearing for his life and acting on adrenaline, he sprinted to the bay window and looked down at the deep waters of the Vltava.

  The river’s smooth, dark surface lay directly beneath him.

  The bell tolled louder.

  He tried to think, but there was no thought, only an overpowering human instinct—survival.

  Without hesitation, Langdon yanked open the window and climbed up onto the sill. The blast of cold air and snow rushing past him did nothing to quell his panic.

  It’s your only choice.

  He stepped to the edge of the windowsill.

  Then, taking a deep breath, Langdon launched himself out into the darkness.

  CHAPTER 5

  Robert Langdon gasped for breath.

  The icy waters of the Vltava River had shocked his system into near paralysis, and as he struggled to stay afloat, he could feel the weight of his wet clothes threatening to drag him under.

  Katherine…

  Langdon looked up at the second-story window from which he’d leaped. The explosion he had feared was coming…had not occurred. The Four Seasons Hotel was still standing, still very much intact.

  In the stark glare of emergency lighting, hotel guests were now flowing out the side exit onto a wide terrace that overlooked the hotel’s mooring docks, which jutted out into the river.

  As he fought to tread water, Langdon suddenly realized the current was pulling him away; the hotel dock would be his only chance of climbing out of the water before being carried downstream.

  Doing his best to avoid panic, he attempted to freestyle toward the dock, but he could barely lift his arms. His soaking sweatshirt was like an anchor around him. The cold water was already constricting his circulatory system, and Langdon could feel the first warning signs of hypothermia in the pain shooting through his ankles and wrists.

  Swim, Robert…

  Resorting to an awkward breaststroke, Langdon strained against the current, trying to make his way toward the hotel dock. He glanced beyond it and feared being dragged over the waterfall that was not far downstream—although he knew he would probably be unconscious and submerged long before he went over the edge.

  Push, dammit!

  As his arms pulled him through the water, Langdon’s mind burned with the image of the ghostly woman wearing the black radiant halo. The headpiece could have been a startling coincidence…but her spear? And the smell of death?