Page 54 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)

The purple glow of The Golěm’s apartment felt soothing after the violent episode of Michael Harris’s death. Having taken a quick shower and donned a robe, The Golěm now kneeled silently in his darkened sanctuary to his svatyně —the sacred room in which he kept the shrine he had erected to her.

A tribute to the woman I was born to protect.

Kneeling in the darkness, he struck a match and lit the three votive candles that were arranged among the dried flowers on the table. As the flickering light grew brighter, he raised his eyes to the photo hanging above the shrine.

The Golěm smiled lovingly at her face.

I am here to watch over you…and yet you don’t even know me.

The details of the woman’s face were not classically beautiful. She had strong Slavic features, shoulder-length blond hair, and a broken nose…but Sasha Vesna was The Golěm’s entire world.

I am your protector, Sasha.

Although she didn’t know it, Sasha’s soul had collided with his years ago in a Russian mental institution…

in a moment of horrific violence. Sasha had been alone and unprotected, enduring a brutal beating from the wicked night nurse, a woman called Malvina, when The Golěm had appeared in the room, unable to bear the abuse any longer.

Fueled by an upwelling of outrage, The Golěm had intervened, lashing out with brutal force and breaking the nurse’s neck.

Mercifully, Sasha had been unconscious and never discovered what had truly transpired that night. The Golěm had slipped silently back into the darkness undetected…but in that moment, their two souls had become forever intertwined, and he had pledged to protect her.

The night I saved her life…is the night I became her protector.

Before his act of compassion, he had been an empty vessel, a ghostly spirit. But in that instant, as if struck by a beam of energy from another realm, he felt his life begin, immediately understanding who he was and the nature of his mystical connection to Sasha Vesna.

I am her guardian angel.

She is my entire reason for living, for suffering, for being.

And yet…she must never know.

To this day, Sasha Vesna had no idea The Golěm even existed…much less that he was involved in her life, watching from the shadows, protecting her innocent soul from the stark horrors of the world.

Sasha’s body and mind had been abused by Brigita Gessner. Michael Harris, on the other hand, had betrayed Sasha’s heart —the cruelest of all deceptions.

“Michael…” The Golěm had whispered only twenty minutes earlier, gripping the neck of the unconscious man to secure the plastic bag tightly over his face.

“ Your betrayal was the harshest of all. I watched you prey on Sasha’s loneliness.

I watched you lie in bed, wrapped in her arms, pretending to love her. ”

The Golěm had tightened his grip without remorse, feeling his fingertips burrow into Harris’s flesh.

“Sasha will be heartbroken to learn of your death,” he whispered, “but that would be nothing compared to her learning the truth …that the only man she ever loved was using her…deceiving her…spying on her.”

As the pulse in Michael Harris’s neck grew faint, The Golěm knew, from his own deaths, that the man was leaving his body now, hovering in this room, bearing witness to his own demise.

The Golěm had turned his eyes upward at the ceiling, addressing Harris directly. “She is a child, Michael…Abandoned by her parents…Locked in an asylum…Lured to Prague by a monster. Everyone in her life betrayed her… except me !”

When the last trace of life had been wrung from Harris’s body, The Golěm leaned down and coldly whispered the same words he had heard Sasha whisper to Harris as he fell asleep in her arms. “ Spokoynoy nochi, milyy. Good night, sweetheart.”

This piece of The Golěm’s plan had been a success.

Michael Harris had been cornered alone. Sasha was safely locked away.

And the American professor, Robert Langdon, had been sent off.

Langdon did not deserve to die, but the man’s presence at Sasha’s apartment would have made it impossible for The Golěm to execute Harris.

And so The Golěm had improvised, leaving a note at Sasha’s door that would cause Langdon to scramble in search of Katherine Solomon.

Langdon would not find her at Pet?ín Tower, of course.

There’s a good chance he will never find her, The Golěm thought, recalling what Gessner had confessed last night while ice-cold saline tore through her body.

“Katherine has no idea the danger she is in…” Gessner had uttered through the pain. “The people I work for…they will stop at nothing to silence her.”