Heroless

The heroes are gone. The world is still burning.

Fifteen years after the supervillains won, the world is ruled by fractured alliances and uneasy truces. Ledge Carp, once the murderous “Crime Clown,” is restless. His nemesis Fox Man is dead. The chaos he thrived on has faded. But when an alien warlord named Siege returns with an armada to conquer Earth, Carp is forced into an impossible role: defending the very world he helped destroy.

Twelve years earlier, Elizabeth Morrison, a retired superhero haunted by guilt and failure, struggles to forget a war that left no winners. But the past won't stay buried. As a new threat emerges and old powers awaken, she finds herself drawn back into a life she thought she’d left behind—and into the heart of a mystery that could change everything.

HEROLESS is a layered, time-jumping story of lost heroes, reluctant villains, and the price of survival in a world where the line between good and evil has long since disappeared.

Start reading HEROLESS today—before the end begins again.

Excerpt from the book

Ledge Carp is bored, splayed over his purple bedclothes in a disorganized manner reminiscent of a gangly rag doll. Maddie lies across his legs sound asleep, her white breasts rising and falling softly. Another man might have congratulated himself, but Carp was an explorer who, after mapping every crevice on a mountain, needed a new challenge and had outgrown the hobby. His eyes wander to the orange walls plastered with trophies of his victories and dozens of framed newspaper articles detailing past triumphs and failures which had gained the sweetness of nostalgia. Carp was merely forty, although general opinion maintained he had reached his zenith. Carp agreed.

Restless, he runs his fingers through wavy hair dry from years of chemicals as is his long face. The clock on the shelf shows 1:30 a.m. Without a second of consideration, he withdraws his feet from under Maddie’s head and slips off the bed, ignores the clothes left on the floor, and tromps to the closet.

The bedsprings creak as Maddie sits up, her bewilderment seeping into his back as he pulls a green shirt over his bony shoulders.

‘What?’ she asks, ‘did something happen?’

‘I'm bored,’ comes his flat answer as he snakes into some plain blue pants.

‘Come back to bed.’ She rubs the covers invitingly.

Carp has found a tie. His love of nice outfits had not faded. As he ties the strip of cloth, rather than look at Maddie only to remember the fiery girl she used to be, he scans his wall of fame.

‘A hero has died today,’ reads the central newspaper clipping, a headline printed fifteen years ago, the paragraph underneath burned on his mind, the relish of its first reading a memory of a memory. ‘…Crime Clown escapes after brutal slaying…’ It was one of the last papers printed. Someone had hung the publisher the next day from the iconic sign over his building. Not Carp, he had held a high regard for Johnson Black’s tenacity. No one criticised the New Order these days, no one called them villains to their faces. There were no honest newspapers left, and the vast slave population of the planet had no use for real news anyway.

But complaining was no good. The way the New Order ran things left Carp to himself most of the time. But there was too much time and no mountains.

‘Come back to bed,’ Maddie reiterates.

But Carp has grabbed his coat. ‘I think I'll go for a drive. Alone,’ he adds when Maddie starts to rise. ‘Don’t wait up,’ he blurts as he shuts the door behind him and Maddie slumps like a withered flower.

Carp’s garage houses six vehicles, all shiny, bright sports cars tuned to perfection. After a moment of half-hearted comparison, he slides behind the wheel of a monstrous blue and pink convertible, keys still in the ignition. As he waits for the metal door to slide open, he glances at an older vehicle in the corner, all purple, the un-repaired dent in the front bumper incongruous with the pristine condition of its neighbours as though the damage were a sacred memento.