Dampyr #104 (2008) pages 29-30: Paging Mister Faust

Jérôme Sombre, having demonstrated his own immortality, offers magical items and more to Casanova:

“I don't know how the devil you did it, but it's a really clever trick. I've never seen anything like it.”

“Not even from the Count of Cagliostro?”

“Not even from Saint-Germain, that other two-bit swindler. Teach me your secrets, my friend. It's never too late to learn.”

“It's easy. You can create wonderful objects, books that everyone will want to read, plays that everyone will want to perform. You will have the most beautiful women in the world, you will regain your lost youth, and neither sword nor bullet will be able to harm you.”

“Forget about such daydreams, Monsieur! I'm not asking to get something impossible!”

“What I promise you is perfectly possible. If you take over my contract, you will be like me, with the same prerogatives. Just sign here below.”

“Ha ha ha! It's incredible! It's too fantastic to be true!”

“A true diabolical contract. This is something I never expected! I'll write about it in my memoirs.”

“So... will you sign?”

“Why not? You are a wonderful charlatan, my friend. You have given me a moment of happiness. And that is why I will sign.”

“There's another visitor for you, sir.”

“Camillo! These interruptions are becoming a habit.”

“This time it's not his fault, Giacomo. I insisted on seeing you immediately. Before it was too late.”

“Nikolaus!”

“Do you two know each other?”

More than immortality, Sombre wants to be freed from something dire in the fine print of his contract. Surely a Faustian bargain!

This is the point at which Nikolaus actually enters the story, justifying it as a flashback he is telling to Harlan after one of Sombre's beautiful golden miniatures surfaces in modern-day Prague. Note the long shadows cast by the two men on the left hand page.