For his second Black Library short story – Miracles – Nicholas Wolf ventures into Warhammer Horror territory with a bleak tale of a family man pushed to his limits. Jacen Hertz might not find it easy to pray to the Emperor, but he works hard and loves his wife and children. As tension rises within Praxis Hive amid talk of disappearances and mutilated bodies, Jacen’s past comes back to haunt him when he miraculously survives a terrible disaster only to fall under the suspicion of the enforcers. As the pressure upon him increases, Jacen must decide how far he’s prepared to go to find salvation.
This is 40k as domestic horror, the usual ‘there is only war’ stylings forming the distant backdrop to a story set far from the battlefield but no less grim and dark for it. There’s a bleak inevitability to events, playing on the ambiguous nature of 40k but always hinting at an unavoidable, unpleasant conclusion. With the emphasis strongly on family ties the inherent darkness of the setting is really brought home, and as such the usual themes of fear and sacrifice hit the mark a little more strongly than they often do. For some this might verge on too dark, but there’s no doubt it’s a powerful, evocative representation of 40k.
