Page 2 of The Secret of Secrets

“I will!” Gessner frantically agreed, and the monster paused the machine, halting the pain at her shoulder, though the intense burning remained.

Racked with terror, Gessner spoke as quickly as she could through clenched teeth, frantically revealing the secrets she had vowed to keep. She answered his questions, divulging the disturbing truth about what she and her partners had created deep beneath the city of Prague.

The monster stared down at her from behind his thick clay mask, his cold eyes flashing with comprehension…and hatred.

“You’ve built an underground house of horrors,” he whispered. “You all deserve to die.” Without hesitation, he turned the machine back on and headed for the door.

“No…!” she shrieked as the agony seized her anew, surging through her shoulder and into her chest. “Please don’t leave…This will kill me!”

“Yes,” he said over his shoulder. “But death is not the end. I have died many times.”

With that, the monster evaporated, and Gessner was suddenly hovering again. She tried to shout an appeal for mercy, but her voice was muted by a deafening thunderclap as the sky above her seemed to open wide. She felt herself gripped by an unseen force—a kind of reverse gravity—lifting her higher, dragging her upward.

For years, Dr. Brigita Gessner had derided her patients’ claims of returning from the brink of death. Now she found herself praying that she could join the ranks of those rare souls who had danced to the edge of oblivion, peered into the abyss, and somehow stepped back from the precipice.

I can’t die…I have to warn the others!

But she knew it was too late.

This life was over.

Chapter 1

Robert Langdon awoke peacefully, enjoying the gentle strains of classical music from his phone’s alarm on the bedside table. Grieg’s “Morning Mood” was probably an obvious choice, but he had always considered it the perfect four minutes of music to start his day. As the woodwinds swelled, Langdon savored the uncertainty of not being able to recall quite where he was.

Ah yes, he remembered, smiling to himself. The City of a Hundred Spires.

In the dim light, Langdon surveyed the room’s massive arched window, flanked by an antique Edwardian dresser and an alabaster lamp. The plush, hand-knotted carpet was still scattered with rose petals from last night’s turndown service.

Langdon had come to Prague three days earlier and, as he had on previous visits, checked into the Four Seasons Hotel. When the manager insisted on upgrading Langdon’s reservation to the three-bedroom Royal Suite, he wondered if it was due to his own brand loyalty or, more likely, to the prominence of the woman with whom he was traveling.

“Our most celebrated guests deserve our most celebrated accommodation,” the manager had insisted.

The suite included three separate bedrooms with en suite baths, a living room, a dining room, a grand piano, and a central bay window with a lavish arrangement of red, white, and blue tulips—a welcome gift from the U.S. embassy. Langdon’s private dressing room offered a pair of brushed wool slippers monogrammed with the initials RL. Something tells me that’s not Ralph Lauren, he thought, impressed by the personalized touch.

Now, as he luxuriated in bed and listened to the music from his alarm, he felt a tender hand touch his shoulder.

“Robert?” a soft voice whispered.

Langdon rolled over and felt his pulse quicken. She was there, smiling at him, her smoky gray eyes still half-asleep, her long black hair tousled around her shoulders.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he replied.

She reached over and stroked his cheek, the scent of Balade Sauvage still on her wrists.

Langdon admired the elegance of her features. Despite being four years older than Langdon, she was more stunning every time he saw her—the deepening laugh lines, the faint wisps of gray in her dark hair, her playful eyes, and that mesmerizing intellect.

Langdon had known this remarkable woman since his days at Princeton, where she was a young assistant professor while he was an undergrad. His quiet schoolboy crush on her had gone either unnoticed or unrequited, but they’d enjoyed a flirtatious, platonic friendship ever since. Even after her professional career skyrocketed, and Langdon became a high-profile professor known throughout the world, the two of them had kept in casual contact.

Timing is everything, Langdon now realized, still marveling at how quickly they had fallen for each other during this spontaneous business trip.

As “Morning Mood” crescendoed into the full orchestration of the theme, he pulled her close with a strong arm, and she nuzzled into his chest. “Sleep okay?” he whispered. “No more bad dreams?”

She shook her head and sighed. “I’m so embarrassed. That was awful.”

Earlier in the night, she had awoken in terror from an exceptionally vivid nightmare, and Langdon had needed to comfort her for nearly an hour before she could get back to sleep. The dream’s unusual intensity, Langdon assured her, had been the result of her ill-advised nightcap of Bohemian absinthe, which Langdon had always believed should be served with a disclaimer: Popular during the Belle Epoque for its hallucinogenic properties.

“Never again,” she assured him.