Dawn of Dae

by R. J. Blain

  Dawn of Dae

  Dae Portals Book One

  R.J. Blain

  Trillian Anderson

  Contents

  Foreword

  1. One of these days, Collie, you’re going to piss me off.

  2. My first problem would be getting close to my target.

  3. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”

  4. Hallucinations, no matter how they were caused, truly sucked.

  5. Since when has blood been worth so much?

  6. A unicorn chose that moment to step out of my refrigerator.

  7. Elite were always looking for ways to extend their lifespans.

  8. I do not like when my property is damaged.

  9. Dae, apparently, favored suits.

  10. The dae were rubbing off on me, especially the werewolves.

  11. I saw myself in their eyes.

  12. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the only one I had.

  13. Well, shit.

  14. Honesty is the best policy, my ass.

  15. How hard could it be, indeed.

  16. Let’s not attract their attention.

  17. He’s always displeased.

  18. I’m not scared of you.

  19. What if I asked really nicely and said please?

  20. Unless you’re Colby.

  21. You need my permission, plain and simple.

  22. Couldn’t you at least say I was handsome?

  23. So glad you approve.

  24. Be careful.

  25. I was impressed I hadn’t keeled over dead yet.

  26. It eats through metal doors, glass walls, and likes apples. It’s above gender rules.

  27. There was something amusing about watching Rob do my job.

  28. Don’t you ‘Mommy’ me, Colby.

  Epilogue: Breathing was important, and I liked doing it.

  About R.J. Blain

  Dawn of Dae

  Dae Portals Book One

  by R.J. Blain writing as Trillian Anderson

  The morning Alexa Daegberht’s macaroni and cheese develops sentience, the world changes. She thought escaping poverty and moving up in the world would be the challenge of her life, but the new arrivals, who call themselves the dae, waste no time proving her wrong.

  Some claim it’s the rapture of the Christian faith. Some claim the world has been reborn. With millions vanished into thin air, one thing is certain: humanity is in for a fight for survival. There’s only one thing Alexa is certain of.

  The dae are here to stay.

  Copyright © 2020 by RJ Blain

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Foreword

  Dear readers,

  Once upon a time, these stories had been released under the pen name of Trillian Anderson. The books have been substantially edited, and in places, rewritten. There are new scenes. While the heart and soul of the story remains the same, I hope you enjoy the new take on an old adventure.

  For those new to this world, you will notice a few things. First, you will notice the caste system and the naming schemes. When the Dae Portals series initially released, it didn’t do all that well. I recycled parts of the caste system and the name schemes for the Susan Copperfield books, as I loved some of the concepts. They were majorly changed, however.

  The Royal States books founded their caste system on different ideals and concepts, which changed its nature.

  The Dae Portals books share some similarities, but they quickly changed course.

  Also, these are the books that ultimately led to the Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) series, as I learned just how much fun it was to let my hair down and write the fun, the zany, and the bizarre. You’ll find some similarities with that series as well. So, I really hope that fans of both the Royal States books and the Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) books read this and find those little Easter eggs that were recycled when I (rather foolishly) assumed I wouldn’t be able to find a way to make this series come back to life.

  I was wrong. I hope you enjoy Alexa’s adventures with her wild and crazy friends.

  ~R.J. Blain

  One

  One of these days, Collie, you’re going to piss me off.

  My first real memory of my parents was also my last.

  It was the refrigerator’s fault I remembered. I should’ve known better than to expect new appliances in my new apartment; I was lucky to have appliances at all. I sure as hell couldn’t afford to buy used ones.

  The refrigerator, however, was a problem. Every time I looked at it, I remembered—and my first memory of my parents was how I, Alexa Zoe Daegberht, had killed them with a wish.

  The wish had been a stupid, childish one. That haunted me more than anything else. I hadn’t even wished for anything important. I’d just been a stupid, angry child.

  Not much had changed beyond my age. I still considered myself stupid, and anger kept me close company. I had changed one thing. I kept my anger and stupidity to myself as often as possible.

  The refrigerator would test me. It was the same damned one, right down to its smoke-stained, pebbled surface and its loose handle. The years hadn’t done it any favors, and I wondered if the door would fall off its hinges when I opened it. Then again, they had built things better when I was a child.

  It was too bad I hadn’t been built a bit better. A lot of things would’ve been different. If I’d been built just a bit better, I wouldn’t have made that stupid, hateful wish. It hadn’t been my father’s fault no one could touch me without irritating my sensitive skin. It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t been able to kiss my cheek like other fathers could with their daughters.

  It had been his fault he’d forgotten; if he hadn’t, my face wouldn’t have been itching and burning. If he hadn’t forgotten, I wouldn’t have run to the fridge, using it as a shield against his touch. If he hadn’t forgotten, I wouldn’t have parroted what he too often said while fighting with my mother:

  If you walk out that door, don’t you ever come back.

  Because I had believed it, had wanted it, and had prayed for it, wishing on a shooting star that night, I had gotten exactly what I’d asked for. My parents had walked out the door and left me behind, never to return.

  The ocean didn’t like giving up its dead, and planes smacking into the water didn’t leave a whole lot to salvage.

  I dropped my bags on the kitchen floor, spat curses, and kicked the refrigerator.

  It won. Beneath the plastic was metal, and it refused to bend. All I did was crunch my toes, and howling, I hopped around on one foot. Through tear-blurred eyes, I glared at the offensive appliance.

  “I’ll end you,” I swore.

  Maybe I could spray paint the damned thing pink. It’d be at least four years before I earned my degree and rank as a Bach, and until then, I was stuck with it. Once I became a Bach, I’d be elevated to a better caste—a caste with a future, and a bright one at that. Once I was a Bach, I could afford to buy my own appliances, and I’d never have to see that make or model of refrigerator ever again. If I scored well enough on the exit exams, I had the slim chance of being accepted for Master training.

  Once I became a Bach, maybe I wouldn’t think of myself as being a stupid, angry child anymore. I’d still be angry, but I’d have value.

  I had my entire life ahead of me, and it would be a good one. Having an education and receiving my degree would be the beginning of my new life. There was no way I’d let a stupid refrigerator take that from me.

  I kept telling myself
that, but I didn’t believe it. Not yet. Not until it happened.

  Until then, I would work hard. Hopes, prayers, and wishes were for those who didn’t truly believe in the power of their words. I did.

  Never again would I make another wish or pray for something I hadn’t earned.

  As the refrigerator refused to acknowledge defeat and leave, I gave up and went for my last-ditch resort. If macaroni and cheese couldn’t make things better, nothing could.

  I left my apartment to explore my new neighborhood and find work, leaving behind the devil-spawned refrigerator with a week’s worth of macaroni and cheese casserole cooling inside. If any of the other students found out I survived on pasta flavored with neon-orange powder, I’d be the laughingstock of the college.

  I wanted to create the illusion of having come from somewhere other than the poorest district in the city, and to do that, I needed money. Merit-based students like me paid off tuition and housing in labor; I was doomed to at least four years serving as some professor’s slave. At least I had ranked high enough to have an apartment instead of a closet in the shared dorms, but unlike on-campus students, I was on my own for the basics.

  To make matters worse for me, the college scrutinized every move of the merit-based students, so I’d have to keep my nose clean if I wanted to make it through my education. I’d known going in success would come at a price, but as I climbed higher, I realized how much of the deck remained stacked against me.

  One wrong move, and I’d lose everything.

  But if I played my hand right, I’d prove a nothing could become a something. I’d break free of the chains binding me to some of Baltimore’s worst men.

  I’d have to use one of those men to get where I wanted to go, and there’d be hell to pay if anyone figured out the truth. Some gambles were worth making, though.

  Change began with me, and I refused to let any man stop me. Not this time.

  I’d have to deal with the devil yet again to make it happen. There was one place I could find a job in a hurry as long as I didn’t mind dealing with the devil: the Inner Harbor. If I had come from any other district, if I had belonged to any other caste, I wouldn’t have needed to turn to Kenneth Smith for work. But Kenneth took in those others wouldn’t and made them do his dirty work.

  Unfortunately for me, I was good at doing his dirty work. Sighing, I ducked my head, adopted a brisk stride, and headed towards the water.

  Baltimore was a large place and grew more each year, and it took me an hour to navigate my way through the city’s heart, skirting around the fringe I’d once called home. On the surface, it was clean and quiet with carefully trimmed lawns, neatly pruned trees, and flowers growing within in painted concrete planters.

  For some reason, people believed the paint made the planters fancy.

  I saw the concrete for what it really was: a cheap coverup.

  The scars of rebellion pockmarked the brick buildings, a reminder of the violence Kenneth Smith and his cohorts had stamped out years ago, turning a slum into a paradise for the rich and famous. They thought the paint, the luxuries, and the lure of wealth could hide the truth.

  It couldn’t. I remembered, and so did every street rat living in their shadow.

  Despite their best efforts, the elites hadn’t managed to fully erase the past.

  Once upon a time, the Inner Harbor had been the entertainment district of Baltimore, a place prone to rioting, a place everyone, no matter what caste, could go and gamble away their money or find other pursuits, many of them illegal. Sporting events were popular—if you could afford the entry fee.

  I couldn’t, and Kenneth Smith counted on that. He didn’t want me as a client, anyway.

  He wanted me as one of his hounds, a dog of his endless drug war, hunting down his non-paying clients, sniffing out dirt on them, and either luring them into one of his little traps or otherwise acquiring his money. The method didn’t matter; the money did, and that was that.

  I hated Kenneth Smith, and I hated the Inner Harbor he lived in. If I had a pack of matches, I’d light it up in the hope of burning the whole place to the ground. My temper soured the closer I got to the townhouse located where the fringe began and the elite’s playground ended.

  No one in their right mind would have believed, not even for a moment, that Baltimore’s charming, ruthless, and despicable criminal mastermind lived in such a dingy place, and that was exactly the way Kenneth Smith liked it.

  I knocked four times, paused, and because I was in a bad mood, I gave the dark-painted door a solid kick, jamming my already aching toes. I didn’t hop around as I had in my apartment.

  One of Smith’s bitches didn’t do something so undignified, not in public.

  I wanted the pain; it served to focus my attention and remind me of the misery my boss would inflict if I screwed up. Clenching my teeth to keep quiet, I waited. Inside, someone thumped down the stairs, and several moments later, the lock clicked. The door opened, and Smith’s favorite bitch answered, glaring at me through narrowed eyes.

  “You again?”

  I smiled at Lily because it would piss her off. “What do you know? It is! Astonishing. Can I come in, or are we going to put on a show for everyone in the neighborhood? I didn’t dress the part. I left my lacy panties at home.”

  I didn’t own any lacy panties, but all things considered, I was going to die a virgin anyway. A kiss on the cheek was enough to give me hives. What would happen if someone tried to kiss me on the mouth? Or worse, do something far more interesting with me?

  I’d probably die.

  Lily snarled something incomprehensible under her breath, stepping back to let me in. “Prissy bitch.”

  Blond-haired, blue-eyed, pasty-skinned Lily belonged in a doll shop, but instead of telling her to go back to selling herself on the street like I wanted, I asked, “Where’s the boss?”

  “Down in the den. He’s with a guest. Wait in the parlor. He’ll come for you himself, I’m sure.” Lily glared at me, slammed the door, and stomped her way up the staircase to the second floor, leaving me to mind my business in the entry.

  I waited by the door.

  The parlor always reeked of drugs, but I had kicked my various habits years ago. As always, the parlor made me want a hit so I could forget everything, right down to who I was and what I had done to get by.

  I had changed. I wasn’t going to let anyone forget it, myself included.

  When the boss came upstairs from his basement lair alone, I worried. Waiting the hour for him to finish wasn’t unusual, but the fact he hadn’t brought his client along meant one of two things: the client had either left through the tunnels, a conceit of the elite, or I was about to be introduced to them.

  Nothing good happened when my boss introduced me to his clients. Nothing good came out of meeting with Kenneth right after an audience with one of the elite.

  His fellow elite had a way of pissing him off, especially when they thought themselves above paying back their debts.

  I examined the shining hardwood, wondering if Kenneth made Lily get on her hands and knees to polish it to perfection. I doubted it; if he had, neither one of them would have gotten any real work done, and that would hurt his bottom line.

  “It’s not like you to come around here without a summons,” my boss said, and his soft-spoken words warned me of trouble.

  Kenneth was a lot of things, and passionate was one of them. If he was moderating his voice, it was because he had graduated from annoyed to murderous, and he didn’t feel like killing me today.

  I should’ve been grateful for that.

  “You always need another nose to the ground, sir,” I murmured, keeping still despite my desire to fidget.

  Lily really had done a stellar job with the floors. While I couldn’t make out the details, the wood reflected my dark hair and bronzed skin. My heritage remained a mystery, dying along with my parents.

  Some folks said German because of my last name, but none of the German descend
ed people I knew had such bronzed skin. I rivaled an Italian, but no self-respecting Italian I knew had a last name like mine.

  I decided it was a good thing I wasn’t all that pretty. I didn’t want to end up just like Lily, serving the boss to keep him from killing the rest of us when he had a bad day. I had too many scars, and not all of them marked my skin.

  If he found out about my inability to handle human contact, he’d probably enjoy knowing he could hurt me with his touch. When I left, I’d have to thank Lily and offer to run errands for her. It was wise to pay back debts, in advance whenever possible.

  The silence stretched on. I gave into my restlessness, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. My toes still throbbed from their introduction to his door and the devil-spawned refrigerator in my apartment.

  “Fine. Come on, then,” he snapped, pivoting on a heel to head back in the direction of the basement stairwell.

  I followed him, keeping my gaze fixed on his black oxfords, which had been polished almost as shiny as his prized floors. He took the stairs two at a time while I took the more cautious approach. With my luck, I’d snap my neck tumbling down the steps.

  “Sit,” he ordered as soon as I crossed over the threshold into his den.

  His den was larger than my apartment, although that wasn’t much of a feat. Someone had been smoking something recently, and the fumes were strong enough to make my nose sting. I took a cautious sniff.