Allen stretched out on top of the crate, yawned. He was jet-lagged. His eyelids grew heavy, and in seconds he was drawn into deep, dark slumber.

Night had fallen. Allen rose from the crate, the full moon casting a pale blue light through the open balcony door. He shivered, a cold wind flowing around him. He saw his own breath fogging between his lips.

It’s summer. I didn’t pack anything warm. He hugged himself.

A creak of floorboards. Allen jerked his head around, looked at the front door, saw nothing. The room seemed to groan under its own weight, and Allen suddenly felt the immensity of the apartment building, an eerie self-awareness of himself as an insignificant part of a greater whole, sleeping minds in other apartments, people eating, screwing, watching television.

A gust of cold wind on his neck and he turned back to the balcony. Allen gasped at the figure standing there.

Her skin glowed white, the frigid wind lifting the midnight hair off her shoulders, her eyes blazing with cold fire. Cassandra. It was Evergreen’s wife, wearing some shimmering, silky gown, her figure clear beneath the sheer material, soft white breasts threatening to overflow the gown’s plunging V-neck. She stretched her hands out to him, the red of her glossy fingernails like radioactive raspberry fire. The color matched her lips, the contrast of the bright red against her white skin doing strange, animal things to him.

Allen. Her lips didn’t move; the voice echoed in his head.

She drifted closer to him, her feet seeming not to touch the ground, the gown billowing around her. The wind howled now, washing the apartment intensely cold. The drapes flapping violently, bits of paper and debris flying around the room.

Allen was unable to move his body or rip his eyes away from Cassandra’s gaze.

She moved close to him, rested her hands on his thighs. An electric shock went to his groin, his sudden anticipation growing. He trembled as her face inched toward his, felt her breath on his mouth. She sank into him, breasts pushing against his chest.

Allen trembled, his erection straining painfully against his jeans. Her lips pressed frozen against him, a violent mix of cold fire, pain, and ecstasy. He tried to push away, but Cassandra’s tongue pushed its way into his mouth, invading him.

He wrenched himself away and scooted back on the crate. He opened his mouth to scream but couldn’t draw breath. He worked his mouth, tried to get air. Allen. Her voice filled his mind.

Allen’s eyes popped open. He sucked breath and screamed, rolled off the crate, and landed with a thud on the hard wooden floor.

He raised his head slowly, looked around. It was still day. The rain had eased but still fell in a drizzle. He was alone. His fingers went briefly to his lips, the dream images lingering and disturbing. Arousal and dread hung on him in equal portions.

He backed away from the crate, gathering his luggage as he went. He left the apartment, flew down the stairs two at a time, and sprinted from the building, out into the drizzle.

Prague lay before him like a mysterious stranger in an old hat.

An exotic woman waiting for him in poor light.

Like an inviting gypsy with a brand-new iPod.

Anyway, it was Prague.

Allen overpaid a cab driver to take him to Charles University.

The housing administrator spoke good English and sent Allen to a crusty brick building, down a narrow dim hall, to a ten-by-ten-foot room with a barren desk and a set of cold war bunk beds. It resembled a prison cell more than a dorm room, the walls an industrial sort of faded green, the tile floor gray and cold. The view from the window was the brick wall of another building five feet away.

The university had been founded in the 1300s. The dorms didn’t seem much more modern. Naked pipes ran up the walls and across the ceiling. They clanked periodically.

Allen unpacked a length of thin line and stretched it across the room, draped his wet clothes over it. He changed again, this time into khaki shorts, white ankle socks and Sketchers, and a dark green Gothic State T-shirt. He’d been told there were laundry machines in the basement of the dorm. If he kept getting soaked, he would probably have to visit it sooner than planned. He put the rest of his things into the tiny closet.

Jet lag pulled at him, but the haunting nightmare of Evergreen’s wife still fogged his brain. He would not be able to sleep. Not yet. Maybe a jolt of caffeine would help. Allen consulted The Rogue’s Guide for a nearby coffee shop.

• The Globe Café & Bookstore: Convenient to the National Theater and a number of tram and metro stops, the Globe is a favorite of expatriates tired of struggling with their Czech language books. Patrons enjoy a cold pilsner or a strong cup of coffee all while luxuriating in the English language. Tired of chicks rebuffing you in some foreign tongue? Come get shot down in English. It’s all so comfortably familiar. Hey, you might even get lucky with some coed from Long Island, away on her first trip, putting the whole thing on Daddy’s American Express card, and man, there you are buying her all the absinthe she can handle until BAM she wakes up in Wenceslas Park without her panties. What’s really cool is that most of the American chicks won’t know where you’re from, so quick thinking and a passable fake British accent will smooth the way. I mean, what’s with these chicks and British accents? Maybe they like to pretend you’re James Bond. Who knows? What happens in Prague stays in Prague. A selection of English language books and email terminals available.

A chalkboard sign outside the Globe advertised a poetry reading that night, reminding Allen that soon the summer-program fiction and poetry students would descend upon the city. Penny would arrive in a few days, and Allen brightened at the thought. It would be nice to have somebody with whom he could pal around the city. He absentmindedly touched the crucifix under his T-shirt. Somewhere back in America, Penny wore hers. He’d kept his promise; he put the thing on every day when getting dressed. He was even starting to like it.

Inside, Allen purchased a strong cup of black coffee and rented one of the computers for twenty minutes to check email. The first message from Dr. Evergreen reminded Allen (for the fiftieth time) how important it was for him to make sure his crate was delivered safely. Allen replied, assuring the professor all was well.

The next message, from Penny, asked if he’d arrived safely. He wrote back that he had but was exhausted. He sipped the coffee, which burned down his throat like acid. It would either wake him up or kill him.

Another email from Evergreen-a perplexing list of research tasks that seemed to have nothing whatsoever to do with Kafka. Allen put them off for later.

He deleted a dozen spam emails before arriving at the final message:

You don’t know what you’re getting into. Be alert. Be cautious. We shall be in contact soon. Trust no one!

The Three

The email address was concerned4u@hotmail.com.

Allen raised an eyebrow, hesitated, then replied,

Who are you and what the hell are you talking about?

Allen glanced over his shoulder. Nobody was taking any particular notice of him. Indeed, the idea that there was anyone within a thousand miles who even knew his name was utterly ridiculous.

Allen finished his coffee, walked out the front door, and ran smack into a priest.

“Allen!” Father Paul greeted him enthusiastically. “Imagine running into you here.”