FACT: All artwork, literature, science, and historical references in this novel are real. “The Consortium” is a private organization with offices in seven countries. Its name has been changed for considerations of security and privacy. Inferno is the underworld as described in Dante Alighieri’s epic poem The Divine Comedy, which portrays hell as an elaborately structured realm populated by entities known as “shades”—bodiless souls trapped between life and death. PROLOGUE I am the Shade. Through the dolent city, I flee. Through the eternal woe, I take flight. Along the banks of the river Arno, I scramble, breathless … turning left onto Via dei Castellani, making my way northward, huddling in the shadows of the Uffizi. And still they pursue me. Their footsteps grow louder now as they hunt with relentless determination. For years they have pursued me. Their persistence has kept me underground … forced me to live in purgatory … laboring beneath the earth like a chthonic monster. I am the Shade. Here aboveground, I raise my eyes to the north, but I am unable to find a direct path to salvation … for the Apennine Mountains are blotting out the first light of dawn. I pass behind the palazzo with its crenellated tower and