Decimation Damnation — Jim McPherson

The tragic tale of the doomed but ever-defiant band of perhaps not-so-miraculously re-embodied supranormals known as the Damnation Brigade continues in the initial mini-novel extracted from the open-ended saga of Wilderwitch's Babies.

By the time the Damnation Brigade regroups in the Weirdom of Cabalarkon only eight of the original ten are left. One of them is Wilderwitch. She's lucky to be alive; even luckier not to lose her leg after battling the Apocalyptics and their fourth generational devic offspring in Subcranial Temporis.

Then she gets pregnant. Her soul-self does too. Make that two. And for much the same reason she's still alive and comparatively intact, at least physically. Who said daemonic possession was malefic? Well, Wilderwitch for one; not that she has much choice.

You see there's this originally extraterrestrial Devil, capitalized, who's not always in the sky looking down upon his Hidden Headworld. At least once a generation, on either side of the Sedon Sphere, he has to impregnate Mother Earth's proxy, Primeval Lilith, the Demon Queen of the Night, they in their generally unwitting hosts, in order to preserve the Inner Earth; prevent it from being swamped by a second Great Flood.

But are either/or, Devil and/or Demon Queen, responsible for the ongoing disappearances of the Witch's fellows? Might it be her onetime baby daughter, who's now years older than her own mother? Might it be the Witch's lover, Saladin Devason, the Master of Weir? Might it be the Witch herself? Or is she merely the final target?

D-Brig really should have called themselves something less self-fulfilling.