by John Jr. Yeo
THE
INFINITE LEAGUE
John Yeo Jr.
Yeoniverse Books
Hammond, IN
The Infinite League
John Yeo Jr.
Copyright ©2017 by John Yeo Jr.
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Cover design- Deanna Cathcart
https://www.facebook.com/dcartphoto
Cover Model: Miranda Gonder
Published by Yeoniverse Books
Hammond, Indiana
www.yeoniverse.com
ISBN-13: 978-1546444961
ISBN-10: 1546444963
Printed in the United States of America
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
Back in the 80s, my friends and I spent countless weekends playing the epic role playing game DC HEROES by Mayfair Games. My imagination sparked their imagination, and together we created a very vivid fantasy world. They’ve been kind enough to allow me to adapt some of their
characters into my works of fiction.
Duke Watson (my brain-brother and best friend, a man who has
patiently read nearly every bit of super-hero fantasy I’ve created)
created the character Arachnid.
Chris Jeschke (a good man who’s friendship I’m unworthy of but I am nonetheless appreciative of) developed the character Combatticon.
The character of Cassiopeia Atwood, a major character in this story, was created by Jeanie Bailey. I’d try to explain how awesome Jeanie is, but I’m trying to keep this book under 300 pages. Thanks, sweetie.
To Jeanie, Duke, and Chris….to you, this book is dedicated.
In Gratitude
Lisa Snyder – Talented, literate and deeply wise, she was a fantastic editor. Having never been a thirty-year-old divorced woman myself, I was a little worried about finding a realistic voice for Emily. Thankfully, Lisa did a fine job in keeping her voice authentic, and the pace of the story running smoothly. Hopefully, this will be the first of many literary adventures together.
In the United States, there are about one hundred and fifteen known individuals exhibiting superhuman abilities. Some were born with these powers, some were the results of freakish accidents, and others were the result of human invention and ingenuity. They are officially referred to as “enhanced humans.” Informally, they are known as Sparks.
Most of these Sparks are content to live ordinary lives, blending in with the rest of humanity. While some use their abilities in the defense of the innocent, other inherently greedy and selfish individuals use these powers to take what they want from the helpless.
Of all the heroic Sparks, the most famous and respected are the five members of the Infinite League. For the last fifteen years, they have never lost a fight. They have cheated death on countless occasions, always emerging triumphant. They are reputed to be immortals.
But nothing good lasts forever.
Emily Watts is certain of this.
Chapter 1
Emily
Tuesday, April 29 – 5 p.m.
This is a story about good guys and bad guys, caped wonders and fiendish criminals, and the grey areas that lie in between. This is the story of how the untimely death of one of the worlds’ greatest super-heroes would change not only my life, but also the rest of the world. But hey, I’ll get to that soon enough. This is my story, after all. Let me tell you a little bit about me.
The first thing you should know about me is that I’m not a fan of people who fly around in capes, flaunting their powers and trying to protect us little people from the forces of evil. My name is Emmeline Watts. My friends call me Emily. I couldn’t give two shits about costumed super-heroes.
Mom told me what she found most attractive about my dad was his love of children. But there was so much more to him than that. He was a handsome man, extremely kind, very strong, and he had no patience for bullies. If he hadn’t become a police officer, I always imagined that he would have been a teacher. He served on the force for over thirty years, he volunteered as a little league coach, he worked as a scout master, he was a deacon of the Baptist church, a devoted husband, and a doting father to me and my two sisters.
He was my super-hero, in a world where guys like him are often overlooked by the ones that fly over our heads every day. I never found it fair that men like him are marginalized by the actions of people who are famous because they can fly, start fires with their fingers, or happen to be bullet proof.
My dad faced dangerous felons every day without amazing powers or fancy gadgets. That’s real bravery, I think.
The park I’m sitting in was named after him, in honor of the years of service he gave to Philadelphia. Some of the city council members had argued that we should name it after the Ambassador, or the Autumn Sentinel, or one of the many others that hog the front page of the newspaper every day. But in the end, they named the park after my father. To hear the sound of children playing every day in the shadow of his statue; he deserved that much.
Officer Edward Watts, the bravest man I’ve ever known. He was fifty-two when he finally lost his fight to cancer, taken from this world way too soon. He won’t even get to see his youngest grandson grow up, that’s the really shitty injustice of it all.
“Fifteen more minutes, Caleb,” I called out to the nine-year-old boy with the scraped knees and unruly brown hair. “Don’t give me that look, I gotta hit the road here, kid.”
He turned away from me suddenly, jumping back on the slide with his friend. My son heard me, although his pouting expression told me he was pretending that he didn’t.
He’s still stinging from the news that I lost my job three months ago. He’s so proud that his mama is….was….a police officer, and it nearly destroyed me to tell him I had left the force. The worst part was explaining what happened to Dad. He was in the hospital at the time, fighting the biggest battle of his life, and my stupid sister had to let it slip that I had my shield taken away. I don’t care what the therapist told me, I’m always going to fear that final disappointment was what broke his will to keep fighting.
I reach out to the post and touch the plaque with his name on it, feeling suddenly unworthy to have my fingers upon the words. I know he’s watching over me. I know he’s proud of me, regardless of the stupid bullshit that happened this year. But I still feel like a failure.
Thinking about him makes my eyes sting, which I know he’d hate to see. Before Caleb notices that I’m tearing up, I swipe my hand across my cheek to brush away the moisture. I feel a tender sting, and that’s when I’m reminded of the light purple bruise darkening my cheek.
“Hell,” I whisper to myself. I reach into the pit of disorderly chaos that is my purse, and find my compact mirror and the crumbling remains of my last tin of concealer.
It was three days ago, but it still hurts like a bitch—and the last thing I need to hear is a lecture from my big sister.
On the other side of the mirror, I see a face I almost don’t recognize anymore. It’s all the crying, really. I take in all the details, sizing myself up as if looking at a stranger. I look at a woman in her early thirties with long, straggly dishwater blonde hair, stormy blue eyes, and dark eyebrows in desperate need of grooming.
There’s another brui
se on my upper arm from where some moron got a lucky roundhouse kick that knocked me on my ass Saturday night. My knuckles are still discolored after accidentally punching a wall instead of his face. Fortunately, Philadelphia is still pretty cool in early April, and the jacket and gloves I’m wearing don’t look terribly out of place. They hide the bruises nicely. I brush another light layer of concealer over my cheek, and examine myself again.
I look good, I suppose. Not good enough to keep Caleb’s father in my life, but I’ve still got it going on.
“Hey, airhead? Are you in a meditative trance, or are just ignoring me?”
Only one voice can always make me smile, besides Caleb. My big sister, even though she’s a good three inches shorter than me. Between the garbage at work and putting Dad into the ground, Ann-Marie gets me through it all.
“Hey there, nerd,” I greet her with an exhausted wave of my hand, shoving the make-up back in my bag. “How’s life in the fast-paced world of finance?”
Ann-Marie wrinkles her nose at me, shrugging off the sarcastic remark. She works in the bank branch in the local supermarket, where she’s been since getting out of college. Not a lot of ambition, but at least she has a husband that brings home the bacon.
“Well, we’re doing better than the main branch,” she told me, as she ran thin fingers through her sloppy brown locks. “Someone tried to hit it today. You didn’t hear the news?”
“Didn’t check the news, I’ve been swimming through job apps today. Someone tried to hit it?”
“Bunch of young kids,” she explained, taking a seat next to me on the bench. “They came in with a steak knife and a malfunctioning stun gun. It was strictly amateur night.”
“Who was on the scene?” I’ll bet it was Kyle, the cute single dad from the robbery division. Or maybe it was Vincent, the hot black guy from homicide that I hooked up with on Groundhog Day, twelve hours before he mysteriously lost my phone number. “Please don’t tell me it was Seth Sharp. If you tell me it was Seth Sharp, I’m going to puke.”
“No, I think they said his name was the Blue Mole,” she replied.
I made the face I usually make right after I take a good sober look at whatever stranger ended up in my bed on Sunday morning.
“You’re doing it again,” she told me.
“What?”
“You’re making that face. The resting bitch face.”
“I’m sorry, the Blue fucking Mole?”
“Good Lord, Emily, you’re at a playground,” she snapped, looking around nervously. “Yeah, the Blue Mole. That’s what Kathy told me. Is he a famous Spark?”
“He’s a joke,” I groaned, leaning back against the cold bench. “He’s just a regular guy in a homemade costume running around trying to be famous. There are more of those losers running around than actual enhanced people.”
“That explains why he was handing out business cards with his website on it,” Ann-Marie realized. “Why do people do that?”
“Because the world is full of stupid people trying to become famous. You show me a real famous person, and I’ll show you someone who just got lucky. Fame is an accident, half the time.”
“Aunt Annie!” Caleb was dashing across the playgrounds towards us, nearly taking out a couple of younger kids in the process. His face broke out into a wide grin as he slammed into Ann-Marie, locking his thin little arms around her waist. “Are we ordering pizza tonight?”
“Oh, now you’re ready to go?” Why does my child always behave better around other people, especially when I’m watching?
“I heard a super-hero stopped a robbery today,” he babbled excitedly. “Was it Necromancer? Was it DeathTek?”
Ann-Marie disentangled herself from Caleb’s fingers, shaking her head regretfully. “It wasn’t much of a robbery, kiddo.”
“It wasn’t much of a super-hero,” I added quietly.
“When I grow up, I’m gonna be a super-hero,” he promised, brushing errant strands of hair out of his eyes. “I’m gonna be just like Ambassador.”
“I think you have to be born on another planet to be like Ambassador,” I pointed out.
“Mom, I want to make the world better for everyone,” he argued. “Like you and grandpa do.”
“Then be a police officer or a firefighter or a doctor,” I suggested, almost a bit harsher than I had intended. “I’d be just as proud of you if you did that.”
“That takes years of extra school,” he grunted. “Plus, the heroes don’t fuck each other over just to save their jobs.”
I shot an irritated look at my sister, who was already biting her lip and trying futilely to will the blushing in her cheeks away. “We’ll have a word about your potty mouth tomorrow. Why don’t you hop in the car, Caleb. I’m sure you have some homework that needs to be done before you scarf down some pizza.”
“Love you, Mom,” he screams as he ran in the direction of the parking lot. I let the awkward silence just simmer for a bit as I continued showering Ann-Marie with withering glares.
“So, any news on your appeal?” She was trying to defuse the situation with a friendly change of direction in the conversation, but that hadn’t worked since we were kids.
“No, Seth Sharp and Captain Pierce are buddies, it’s over for me. Could you ask your husband to try and watch his language when he’s giving Caleb his opinion of my career trajectory, please?”
“Yeah, like you have the mouth of an angel,” she weakly replied.
“I don’t know what you’re fucking talking about. Are you sure you don’t mind watching Caleb for the night?” I hate dropping my son on her like this, and I try not to do it often. But she loves the kid, and he has fun with his cousins. As much as we disagree on a lot of things, she’s been such a rock in my life this year.
“It’s fine, we were all just going to have a pizza and a movie night together anyway,” she promised. “So is this a hot date?”
“Yeah, I wish,” I answered sadly, as I pulled a twenty dollar bill out of my purse. “I haven’t had vitamin D in so long, a gentle breeze gets me off.”
“Don’t be gross, sis.”
“I’m serious, I’m like a virgin again.”
“Lalalalalalala….”
“Fine, don’t be supportive,” I grumbled, handing her the money. “Here’s some bucks for the pizza.”
“Put your money away, you’re out of work,” she grimaced, keeping her hands firmly planted in her pocket. “So where are you going? Job interview, maybe?”
“Job opportunity,” I smiled vaguely, kissing her cheek and shoving the money into her pocket. “Say hi to Charles for me.”
“You’d better not be stripping.”
“Shut up, nerd,” I told her as we walked to the parking lot. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“You aren’t doing what I think you’re doing, are you?” she asked seriously, looking at my face suspiciously.
“You remember I’m a big girl, right?”
“You’re going to get your badge back, Emily,” she said, with much more certainty than I could ever muster. “Please don’t tell me you’re doing one of those stupid underground cage matches I keep hearing about. There’s safer ways to get money.”
My sister, like always, was so hilariously off base I wanted to laugh.
“Please don’t tell Caleb that,” I whispered. “I don’t want him searching YouTube trying to see mom getting her teeth kicked in every week. You know he’s worries like an old woman.”
“Charles was right, you are doing cage fighting,” she yelped, grabbing my bruised arm and tugging painfully. “Are you out of your gosh darned mind?”
“You two actually had a discussion about this? God, I’m not cage fighting, you dork.”
It was the truth, I really wasn’t. I had crossed that off my list of possible sources of income once I found out that beginner fighters typically don’t get paid at first. Screw that. “I’m looking for opportunities in private security, okay? I’ll tell you how it went in the morning.�
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“I know when you’re lying, you know,” Ann-Marie said knowingly, carefully shoving the twenty dollar bill back into my pocket. “Don’t do anything Dad would be ashamed of.”
It was a dirty tactic, and she knew it. I put the money back into her pocket, and gave her a withering glare that advised her to keep it, and be content that she at least got the last word in.
I waved at Caleb once again, and blew my sister a kiss before heading over to my car.
Had I known it was going to be the last time I would be seeing them, I’d probably have left on better terms.
Four years ago, when I was a police officer, my partner and I arrested Eamon Flanagan and a bunch of other lowlifes when they attempted to rob a small jewelry store in Walnut Hill. On first glance, Flanagan seemed like nothing more than an uneducated Irish thug with a twice-broken nose and callused meat for fists. But underneath the thuggish surface lurked a deceptively talented gift for quietly breaking into places you’re not supposed to be. He was the one who had expertly bypassed the alarm system, allowing his crew to wander in and freely help themselves to the treasures inside.
If Seth Sharp and I hadn’t happened to be driving past that store in the three-minute window they had allotted for themselves, they probably would have succeeded. As it turned out, I brought a promising career in felony theft to an end that night. He got out on parole just a few months ago, and the job market has ironically been just as unkind to him as it has been to me.
For us to be working together in any capacity is just the most deranged of cosmic jokes, but here I was, standing on the doorstep of his apartment.
