Page 192 of The Secret of Secrets

Katherine motioned to the fixture overhead, which was bare. “No bulb.”

She was about to suggest Langdon go into Sasha’s apartment and find a flashlight, but he was already pushing on into the blackness, no doubt eager to get out of the cramped passageway.

Katherine enjoyed darkness about as much as Langdon enjoyed enclosed spaces, but she forced herself to follow. With her hand placed firmly on the rickety railing, she climbed to the top of the stairs and reached out tentatively to find Langdon on the small landing, in near-complete darkness, standing outside a solitary door.

“Sasha?!” he called, knocking. “Hello?!”

Silence.

He knocked more heavily now. “Sasha? It’s Robert Langdon! Are you okay?”

Nothing.

Langdon tried the door. Locked.

After pounding some more, he held his ear to the door for a full ten seconds. Finally, he backed away and shook his head. “It’s dead quiet in there. I hope she’s okay.”

“What was plan B?” Katherine asked in the darkness. “Should we find a crowbar or hammer?”

“It might be simpler than that,” Langdon said, thinking. “Gessner owns both these apartments, and she used to live above her sick mother…” He seemed to be examining the door handle in the darkness.

Katherine squinted to see what he was doing. “Are you trying to pick the lock?”

“Not quite,” he replied. He continued to jiggle his hands, and then she heard the sound of a cylinder click. Langdon lifted the handle and gave the door a gentle push. It swung open.

Katherine stared at him. “What just happened?”

Langdon held up the Krazy Kitten key ring. “Gessner lived here, owned both apartments, and her mother was ailing—so why not make it simple and have one key that works for both flats, for easy access?”

Of course, Katherine realized, and there was no reason to change the locks when Sasha moved in because the second apartment sat empty.

As the door creaked inward, Langdon and Katherine found themselves staring into pitch-darkness, which was not surprising considering the heavy shutters shrouding the windows. Katherine reached inside the doorframe and felt around, locating a light switch. When she flipped it, they both stepped back in surprise. The scene that illuminated before them was a foreign world.

The barren flat was bathed entirely in an eerie, purple luminescence.

Chapter 121

The Golěm stared at his clay-caked face in the mirror, knowing it was a face he would never see again. The end was near, and thankfully it was exactly the end he had imagined.

I am The Golěm. My time is almost done.

Having ascended safely to Gessner’s lab, he was now one level beneath Crucifix Bastion, standing in the small laboratory bathroom.

At the sink, he studied the three Hebrew letters crudely etched on his forehead. They were faded from perspiration and dust, but the powerful ancient word still resonated.

אמת

Truth.

The Golěm had always known this moment was coming.

Truth becomes Death.

As Rabbi Judah Loew had done centuries ago to kill his earthen monster and release him from servitude, The Golěm now pressed his index finger against the thick dried clay—pushing down on the rightmost letter, aleph. Feeling a pang of loss and identity, he scraped his finger downward, chipping off the clay until the letter had vanished.

As was the ancient protocol, his forehead now bore a different word entirely.

מת