Some time after his latest near-drowning, Harlan awakens in Nikolaus' home: “Cough cough! Hanneke!”
(Hanneke) “Harlan, my dear. Breathe slowly. You drank half the Moldau, you know? We had to empty your stomach and even give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
“I still feel queasy. As for the mouth-to-mouth, did you do that?”
(Nikolaus) “Sorry to disappoint you. It was me. If you remember correctly, Hanneke passed through the painting, but we passed through the river.”
“Nik! I owe you my life once again.”
“Bozena and Gustav Meyrink led Hanneke to my house. She'll be safe here.” (Bozena and Meyrink are ghosts.)
“Your house? How much time has passed? Where are Tesla and Kurjak?”
(Meyrink) “The girl who calls herself Tess O'Day had to return to the infernal city immediately, and Kurjak went with her.”
(Nikolaus) “Unfortunately, Harlan, I fear we don't have a way to follow them. The Eblis painting and the entire Sinistrari exhibition have vanished into thin air.”
Speaking of Kurjak, he's coughing as well after traveling into the Eblis painting with T3sla: “Cough! Cough!”
“What the devil happened? Have my wounds reopened? I’m…”
“Drenched in blood, yes. But it's not yours, my love. I fished you out of the black swamp of blood that surrounds Eblis. Unfortunately, if you pass through the entrance to the painting, you end up in there. That's the price you pay.”
“Wow! These are the walls of the infernal city? A terrible place. My Kalashnikov?”
“Don't worry. It's intact inside the waterproof bag I advised you to put it in, but it will be of no use against Samael, Arioch, and the others.”
The first panels on each page are among the best I've seen of Harlan and Kurjak respectively, though of course we're not seeing either at their best.
