Inferno

Langdon shouted, his eyes flying open.

Dr. Brooks eyed him with concern. “What is it?”

“I keep hallucinating!” Langdon exclaimed. “The same scene.”

“The silver-haired woman? And all the dead bodies?”

Langdon nodded, perspiration beading on his brow.

“You’ll be okay,” she assured him, despite sounding shaky herself. “Recurring visions are common with amnesia. The brain function that sorts and catalogs your memories has been temporarily shaken up, and so it throws everything into one picture.”

“Not a very nice picture,” he managed.

“I know, but until you heal, your memories will be muddled and uncataloged — past, present, and imagination all mixed together. The same thing happens in dreams.”

The elevator lurched to a stop, and Dr. Brooks yanked open the folding door. They were walking again, this time down a dark, narrow corridor. They passed a window, outside of which the murky silhouettes of Florence rooftops had begun emerging in the predawn light. At the far end of the hall, she crouched down and retrieved a key from beneath a thirsty-looking houseplant and unlocked a door.

The apartment was tiny, the air inside hinting at an ongoing battle between a vanilla-scented candle and old carpeting. The furniture and artwork were meager at best — as if she had furnished it at a yard sale. Dr. Brooks adjusted a thermostat, and the radiators banged to life.

She stood a moment and closed her eyes, exhaling heavily, as if to collect herself. Then she turned and helped Langdon into a modest kitchenette whose Formica table had two flimsy chairs.

Langdon made a move toward a chair in hopes of sitting down, but Dr. Brooks grabbed his arm with one hand and opened a cabinet with her other. The cabinet was nearly bare … crackers, a few bags of pasta, a can of Coke, and a bottle of NoDoz.

She took out the bottle and dumped six caplets into Langdon’s palm. “Caffeine,” she said. “For when I work night shifts like tonight.”

Langdon put the pills in his mouth and glanced around for some water.

“Chew them,” she said. “They’ll hit your system faster and help counteract the sedative.”

Langdon began chewing and instantly cringed. The pills were bitter, clearly meant to be swallowed whole. Dr. Brooks opened the refrigerator and handed Langdon a half-empty bottle of San Pellegrino. He gratefully took a long drink.

The ponytailed doctor now took his right arm and removed the makeshift bandage that she’d fashioned out of his jacket, which she laid on the kitchen table. Then she carefully examined his wound. As she held his bare arm, Langdon could feel her slender hands trembling.

“You’ll live,” she a

Langdon hoped she was going to be okay. He could barely fathom what they’d both just endured. “Dr. Brooks,” he said, “we need to call somebody. The consulate … the police. Somebody.”

She nodded in agreement. “Also, you can stop calling me Dr. Brooks — my name is Sie

Langdon nodded. “Thanks. I’m Robert.” It seemed the bond they’d just forged fleeing for their lives warranted a first-name basis. “You said you’re British?”

“By birth, yes.”

“I don’t hear an accent.”

“Good,” she replied. “I worked hard to lose it.”

Langdon was about to inquire why, but Sie

Not good. Langdon’s thick dark hair was matted, and his eyes looked bloodshot and weary. A shroud of stubble obscured his jaw.

Sie

Sie

“It’s fine. I’m not bothered by—”

Sie

“You don’t want an infection,” she said, scrubbing harder now. “Besides, if you’re going to call the authorities, you’ll want to be more alert than you are now. Nothing activates adrenaline production like pain.”

Langdon held on for what felt like a full ten seconds of scrubbing before he forcefully yanked his arm away. Enough! Admittedly, he felt stronger and more awake; the pain in his arm had now entirely overshadowed his headache.

“Good,” she said, turning off the water and patting his arm dry with a clean towel. Sie

For nearly four decades, Langdon had worn an antique collector’s edition Mickey Mouse timepiece, a gift from his parents. Mickey’s smiling face and wildly waving arms had always served as his daily reminder to smile more often and take life a little less seriously.

“My … watch,” Langdon stammered. “It’s gone!” Without it, he felt suddenly incomplete. “Was I wearing it when I arrived at the hospital?”

Sie

“Wait, where are you going?”

“You can’t talk to the police half naked. I’m going to find you some clothes. My neighbor is about your size. He’s away, and I’m feeding his cat. He owes me.”

With that, Sie

Robert Langdon turned back to the tiny mirror over the sink and barely recognized the person staring back at him. Someone wants me dead. In his mind, he again heard the recording of his own delirious mumblings.

Very sorry. Very sorry.

He probed his memory for some recollection … anything at all. He saw only emptiness. All Langdon knew was that he was in Florence, having suffered a bullet wound to the head.

As Langdon stared into his own weary eyes, he half wondered if he might at any moment wake up in his reading chair at home, clutching an empty martini glass and a copy of Dead Souls, only to remind himself that Bombay Sapphire and Gogol should never be mixed.

CHAPTER 7

Langdon shed his bloody hospital gown and wrapped a towel around his waist. After splashing water on his face, he gingerly touched the stitches on the back of his head. The skin was sore, but when he smoothed his matted hair down over the spot, the injury all but disappeared. The caffeine pills were kicking in, and he finally felt the fog begi

Think, Robert. Try to remember.

The windowless bathroom was suddenly feeling claustrophobic, and Langdon stepped into the hall, moving instinctively toward a shaft of natural light that spilled through a partially open door across the corridor. The room was a makeshift study of sorts, with a cheap desk, a worn swivel chair, assorted books on the floor, and, thankfully … a window.

Langdon moved toward daylight.

In the distance, the rising Tuscan sun was just begi

Painter’s light, they called it.

At the heart of the skyline, a mountainous dome of red tiles rose up, its zenith adorned with a gilt copper ball that glinted like a beacon. Il Duomo. Brunelleschi had made architectural history by engineering the basilica’s massive dome, and now, more than five hundred years later, the 375-foot-tall structure still stood its ground, an immovable giant on Piazza del Duomo.