«Mr. Langdon,» Fache said abruptly. «Obviously, the pentacle must also relate to the devil. Your American horror movies make that point clearly.»

Langdon frowned. Thank you, Hollywood.The five-pointed star was now a virtual cliché in Satanic serial killer movies, usually scrawled on the wall of some Satanist’s apartment along with other alleged demonic symbology. Langdon was always frustrated when he saw the symbol in this context; the pentacle’s true origins were actually quite godly.

«I assure you,» Langdon said,» despite what you see in the movies, the pentacle’s demonic interpretation is historically inaccurate. The original feminine meaning is correct, but the symbolism of the pentacle has been distorted over the millennia. In this case, through bloodshed.» «I’m not sure I follow.» Langdon glanced at Fache’s crucifix, uncertain how to phrase his next point. «The Church, sir. Symbols are very resilient, but the pentacle was altered by the early Roman Catholic Church. As part of the Vatican’s campaign to eradicate pagan religions and convert the masses to Christianity, the Church launched a smear campaign against the pagan gods and goddesses, recasting their divine symbols as evil.»

«Go on.»

«This is very common in times of turmoil,» Langdon continued. «A newly emerging power will take over the existing symbols and degrade them over time in an attempt to erase their meaning. In the battle between the pagan symbols and Christian symbols, the pagans lost; Poseidon’s trident became the devil’s pitchfork, the wise crone’s pointed hat became the symbol of a witch, and Venus’s pentacle became a sign of the devil.» Langdon paused. «Unfortunately, the United States military has also perverted the pentacle; it’s now our foremost symbol of war. We paint it on all our fighter jets and hang it on the shoulders of all our generals.» So much for the goddess of love and beauty.

«Interesting.» Fache nodded toward the spread-eagle corpse. «And the positioning of the body? What do you make of that?» Langdon shrugged. «The position simply reinforces the reference to the pentacle and sacred feminine.»

Fache’s expression clouded. «I beg your pardon?»

«Replication. Repeating a symbol is the simplest way to strengthen its meaning. Jacques Saunière positioned himself in the shape of a five-pointed star.» If one pentacle is good, two is better.

Fache’s eyes followed the five points of Saunière’s arms, legs, and head as he again ran a hand across his slick hair. «Interesting analysis.» He paused. «And the nudity?» He grumbled as he spoke the word, sounding repulsed by the sight of an aging male body. «Why did he remove his clothing?»

Damned good question, Langdon thought. He’d been wondering the same thing ever since he first saw the Polaroid. His best guess was that a naked human form was yet another endorsement of Venus – the goddess of human sexuality. Although modern culture had erased much of Venus’s association with the male/female physical union, a sharp etymological eye could still spot a vestige of Venus’s original meaning in the word» venereal.» Langdon decided not to go there.

«Mr. Fache, I obviously can’t tell you why Mr. Saunière drew that symbol on himself or placed himself in this way, but I can tell you that a man like Jacques Saunière would consider the pentacle a sign of the female deity. The correlation between this symbol and the sacred feminine is widely known by art historians and symbologists.»

«Fine. And the use of his own blood as ink?» «Obviously he had nothing else to write with.» Fache was silent a moment. «Actually, I believe he used blood such that the police would follow certain forensic procedures.»

«I’m sorry?»

«Look at his left hand.»

Langdon’s eyes traced the length of the curator’s pale arm to his left hand but saw nothing. Uncertain, he circled the corpse and crouched down, now noting with surprise that the curator was clutching a large, felt-tipped marker.

«Saunière was holding it when we found him,» Fache said, leaving Langdon and moving several yards to a portable table covered with investigation tools, cables, and assorted electronic gear. «As I told you,» he said, rummaging around the table,» we have touched nothing. Are you familiar with this kind of pen?»

Langdon knelt down farther to see the pen’s label. STYLO DE LUMIERE NOIRE. He glanced up in surprise.

The black-light pen or watermark stylus was a specialized felt-tipped marker originally designed by museums, restorers, and forgery police to place invisible marks on items. The stylus wrote in a noncorrosive, alcohol-based fluorescent ink that was visible only under black light. Nowadays, museum maintenance staffs carried these markers on their daily rounds to place invisible» tick marks» on the frames of paintings that needed restoration.

As Langdon stood up, Fache walked over to the spotlight and turned it off. The gallery plunged into sudden darkness.

Momentarily blinded, Langdon felt a rising uncertainty. Fache’s silhouette appeared, illuminated in bright purple. He approached carrying a portable light source, which shrouded him in a violet haze.

«As you may know,» Fache said, his eyes luminescing in the violet glow,» police use black-light illumination to search crime scenes for blood and other forensic evidence. So you can imagine our surprise…» Abruptly, he pointed the light down at the corpse.

Langdon looked down and jumped back in shock.

His heart pounded as he took in the bizarre sight now glowing before him on the parquet floor. Scrawled in luminescent handwriting, the curator’s final words glowed purple beside his corpse. As Langdon stared at the shimmering text, he felt the fog that had surrounded this entire night growing thicker.

Langdon read the message again and looked up at Fache. «What the hell does this mean!» Fache’s eyes shone white. «That, monsieur, is precisely the question you are here to answer.»

Not far away, inside Saunière’s office, Lieutenant Collet had returned to the Louvre and was huddled over an audio console set up on the curator’s enormous desk. With the exception of the eerie, robot-like doll of a medieval knight that seemed to be staring at him from the corner of Saunière’s desk, Collet was comfortable. He adjusted his AKG headphones and checked the input levels on the hard-disk recording system. All systems were go. The microphones were functioning flawlessly, and the audio feed was crystal clear.

Le moment de vérité, he mused.

Smiling, he closed his eyes and settled in to enjoy the rest of the conversation now being taped inside the Grand Gallery.

The modest dwelling within the Church of Saint-Sulpice was located on the second floor of the church itself, to the left of the choir balcony. A two-room suite with a stone floor and minimal furnishings, it had been home to Sister Sandrine Bieil for over a decade. The nearby convent washer formal residence, if anyone asked, but she preferred the quiet of the church and had made herself quite comfortable upstairs with a bed, phone, and hot plate.

As the church’s conservatrice d’affaires, Sister Sandrine was responsible for overseeing all nonreligious aspects of church operations – general maintenance, hiring support staff and guides, securing the building after hours, and ordering supplies like communion wine and wafers.

Tonight, asleep in her small bed, she awoke to the shrill of her telephone. Tiredly, she lifted the receiver.

«Soeur Sandrine. Eglise Saint-Sulpice.»

«Hello, Sister,» the man said in French.

Sister Sandrine sat up. What time is it? Although she recognized her boss’s voice, in fifteen years she had never been awoken by him. The abbé was a deeply pious man who went home to bed immediately after mass.