Page 119 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)
Finch whipped around in alarm and scanned the room.
Who the hell said that?!
The acoustics in the dome made it difficult to discern exactly where the words had come from. Langdon and Katherine looked equally startled.
“Where are you?!” Finch called out, not recognizing the hollow male voice. The accent had definitely sounded Russian. “Show yourself now!”
Finch heard a soft hiss of air, the only sound that pierced the silence of the dome.
It was coming from the rear of the room, behind Langdon and Solomon.
As his captives turned toward the sound, Finch looked past them, realizing this hiss was emanating from the pneumatic lift that accessed the utilities area.
As the platform ascended, they all witnessed a spectacle unlike anything Finch would have imagined in his wildest dreams.
From out of the earth…a monster was rising.
The face appeared first—its skin deathly gray and featureless.
The head was hairless, shrouded in the hood of a black cloak, and its two cold eyes seemed locked on Finch and his outstretched gun.
As the cloaked body rose into view, its arms were extended horizontally, showing bare palms like some kind of ascendant Christ.
When the pneumatic platform stopped, the figure stepped off and began moving toward them, his heavy boots thudding on the carpeted floor.
Arms still splayed in surrender, he approached through the sea of pods, his black cloak billowing.
Finch now saw that the monster’s head and face were caked with thick clay or mud, and some kind of writing was etched into his forehead. What the fuck is this thing?!
“Stop!” Finch shouted, finally finding his voice when the creature was not more than fifteen yards away. “Not another step!”
The monster obeyed, halting, his arms still outstretched.
Finch stepped to his right for a clear shot past Langdon and Katherine. “Who are you?!” What are you?!
“You have betrayed Sasha’s trust,” the figure replied, his voice hollow in the dome. “I am her protector.”
“Is Sasha here too somewhere?” Finch demanded.
“No, she is somewhere safe. She will never lay eyes on any of this again.”
“And you are?”
The monster’s body twitched suddenly, which seemed to startle him, but he regrouped.
“I…am—” His voice cracked, and this time Finch saw fear flash in his eyes.
The creature’s outstretched arms began trembling, and his defiant air evaporated.
“No…ne seychas!” he stammered, his tone now more of a frightened supplication. “Not now…”
Abruptly, the monster collapsed to the floor, his entire body shaking uncontrollably. He rolled onto his back, lying on the carpet, helpless, trembling.
Finch had witnessed epileptic seizures before, and while he had no idea who this was, this person’s presence explained the epilepsy wand Finch had found upstairs. Is this another of Gessner’s patients? From outside the program?
The monster was now struggling to search his cloak pockets, clearly trying in desperation to locate something.
“Is this what you’re missing?” Finch taunted, pulling the metal wand from his pocket and moving toward the incapacitated figure. “Tell me who you are, and I’ll give this to you.”
“He can’t speak!” Langdon shouted. “For God’s sake, help him!”
“Would you like your wand?” Finch said, arriving over the figure, who convulsed helplessly, his head now vibrating against the floor.
“Help him!” Katherine shouted.
Gun still in hand, Finch crouched down beside the shuddering form and held the wand before his eyes. “Why don’t you start by telling me—”
Finch never finished the sentence.
In a flash of precisely coordinated movement, the trembling figure sat upright, and like a snake striking, one arm shot out toward Finch, connecting with his chest. There was a loud hiss and a flash of blue light, and a searing pain tore through the man’s body.
Finch’s gun discharged into the side of a pod as he went rigid and fell forward, his attacker twisting deftly out of the way to allow Finch to hit the floor face-first.
On impact, Finch felt the cartilage in his nose shatter completely.
The pain was nauseating, like nothing he’d felt in his life.
Blood streaming down his face, his paralyzed body came to rest on its side.
He could see the cloaked figure rise effortlessly to his feet, a hand reaching down to collect the gun and wand, both of which Finch had dropped.
The heavy platform boots moved toward Finch, inches away from his face.
Gasping for breath, Finch strained to turn his head, his eyes climbing his attacker’s body all the way to his face.
Upon seeing the monster who stood over him, Finch wondered if perhaps he had died and gone to hell.
The creature staring down at him was barely human. His face was earthen with deep cracks running through his skin of dried clay. On his forehead, three symbols were etched deep into his muddy flesh. The creature’s eyes were unyielding, and their glare told Finch there would be no mercy.
Robert Langdon was accustomed to processing complex information quickly.
At the moment, however, the scene before him had unfolded too rapidly to comprehend fully what was happening.
Finch now lay on the floor, quivering and debilitated.
The cloaked figure facing Langdon and Katherine was wearing a costume of some sort; his shaved head and face were caked with thick clay, and his forehead was inscribed with a Hebrew word.
???
Langdon did not read Hebrew well, but these three letters were legendary. They spelled EMET, and when etched on a forehead, their meaning could never be mistaken.
Truth…
The Golěm of Prague.
Before Langdon could even begin to try to make sense of any of it, the silence of the room was shattered by a deafening siren. Piercing and shrill, the alarm wailed overhead, and spinning warning lights began sweeping repeatedly around the interior of the dome.
“Go!” shouted the figure in the cloak, pointing back the way they had come. “NOW! This entire facility is about to explode!”
Langdon hoped he had heard incorrectly. Explode?!
“We locked the RFID door!” Katherine said. “We have no card to get out!”
“Come here!” The cloaked figure crouched down over Finch, who was still quivering, helpless. Langdon hurried over in bewilderment as the monster went through Finch’s pockets, pulled out his wallet, and extracted a black “PRAGUE” card identical to the one Gessner was carrying.
“You’ll have twenty seconds,” the figure shouted, barely audible over the alarm as he grabbed Finch’s hand and forced the man’s thumb onto the surface of the card until a tiny indicator light turned green. He immediately handed the activated card to Langdon. “Twenty seconds! Go!”
“What about you ?!” Langdon asked.
“I am The Golěm,” the figure replied. “I have died many times.”
Godspeed, The Golěm thought, relieved to see Robert Langdon and Katherine Solomon racing from the dome. They do not deserve to die.
Finch, however, was a different story.
The Golěm stood over his bloody captive…
the puppet master who had overseen this project.
In the spinning lights of the Threshold dome, the creature turned to the nearest EPR pod, pressed the release button, and opened the lid.
Then he hoisted the diminutive man up over the lip of the pod and dumped him inside as if he were already a lifeless corpse.
Finch’s eyes bulged, and he started to regain mobility, but it was too late. The Golěm quickly affixed the pod’s heavy Velcro straps to his arms and legs, imprisoning his captive in the coffin-like interior.
“Please…stop…” the man croaked, regaining his voice.
Leaning into the pod, The Golěm placed his mouth an inch from Finch’s ear and whispered, “I wish I could turn your blood to ice and let you feel what I felt so many times…but there is no time for that.”
“Who…are…you?” the man stammered.
“You know me,” The Golěm replied. “You created me.”
Finch stared up, scrutinizing his attacker, his eyes probing the monster’s face with increasing desperation. But The Golěm had no desire to give him the satisfaction of discovery.
Calmly, The Golěm stared down at his victim and spoke the last words the man would ever hear.
Then he pressed the button on the side of the pod and watched contentedly as the transparent gullwing lid lowered into place, sealing Finch inside, muting his screams of terror, which were lost in the siren’s urgent wail.