Working with the Enemy
Onyx Twilight chapter one
Note: Onyx is book one of the Sky Chronicles, a series of books I've been working on for over a year and a half now. It's vampires, hunters, werewolves, demons, elves and a lot more. Book one, Onyx, is currently being read and edited by my lovely sister, Rozzy. Book two, Nightmare, is just sitting in the journal waiting to be edited, and book three, Heaven, is still being written. But anyway, I don't know where I got the idea, but I just felt like putting the Cullens in on the story. Sound odd? Well wait, I don't think it'll be quite the same as when I interjected Roz and Jeza into their world…that and Sky's way more violent than my assassin twins. So have fun!
Nine…ten…eleven…twelve. Twelve; there were twelve of them. Nine were human, but strong humans. Hunters. The other three were vampires. They stood shoulder to shoulder in a semi-circle, their stances strong, and intimidating with warning in their eyes.
The one that looked to be the oldest stood in the middle. He looked to be about in his mid-thirties, maybe older, with a very commanding demeanor. His black hair was strait and messy around his face, and in his blue-green eyes. In one ear he had a little silver hoop earring and on the same side four long claw-like scars raced down his cheek. Human though he was, he looked like he could do a lot of damage on a vampire.
He was flanked on either side by vampires too. One was a tall man, dark hair, but not black and combed nicely out of his face. He was pale, well dressed, clean, and looked more human than the other two vampires did, despite his obsidian black eyes. In looks alone he could have been about the same age if not younger than the human he stood next to him, in reality he had to be much older.
The other side had the other two vampires. Directly to the right of the human man was a vampire girl, maybe eighteen or nineteen when she was changed. Her hair was blonde, shaggy and cut somewhere between her shoulders and her chin, with sections cut a lot shorter and some a bit longer. One of her eyes was hidden beneath a section of hair that had been dyed bright blue. The last vampire stood next to her. He looked the most like a vampire. He dressed in all black with his hair and eyes matching his attire for the most part. The only spots of color on his person were a streak of green in his mass of curls, and a green hooded jacket under a black leather jacket. He looked like a rock star, or a bad boy, or a vampire wanna-be well still looking cool and tough. To human eyes anyway, that's what he looked like.
Still to the right of him, the youngest of them stood. She looked like maybe she was pushing twenty, but was till young and innocent looking. Her hair was clearly a copied version of the vampire girl's although it was light brown and had no dyed colors in it. Instead of having black eyes like the vampires did, she had dark blue. She bounced from side to side with a big grin on her face. A very odd kind of girl for a profession like she had. And she kept looking up at the boy on her right. His eyes were gray and his hair was a striking white blonde that glowed brightly in the moonlight. He was just barely older than the girl.
Next was a girl with her black hair cut shorter than any other girls' and eyes that were a strange green and gold color. And she used them to glare at her surroundings. For a twenty-something, she looked more like she belonged to a gang or something than anything else. Her life probably would have lead her to jail if she hadn't been part of the underground world of demons and hunters. But she kept looking to the last guy in line like she was waiting for him to give her permission to go. The man with silver hair and crystal blue eyes wouldn't look away from his target however, and it was starting to annoy the girl.
On the left side, left of the vampire in the center, were the last four humans. Immediately to his left was another man who looked like he was in his thirties, if only barely. His hair was light blonde and his eyes were a pale gray-green. He looked very similar to the man on the far right though, perhaps they were related somehow. Everyone besides him, the man in the center, and the man on the far right were younger, in their twenties or so but no one looked to be younger than about eighteen.
The man next to him had longer hair for someone his age. His hair was dark brown and almost covered his eyes of the same color. He looked like he was the strongest of the humans and he took no cues for anyone. He looked very much like the kind of do-it-himself kind of guy. The last of the women stood to his left; a very maternal looking woman, with strait strawberry blonde hair and bangs across her forehead framing her hazel green eyes. She looked, like the youngest girl, like she wasn't meant to be in the profession she was in.
The last on the left was a man in his mid-twenties. His hair was bronze, and his eyes were gold. He surveyed his team almost as much as he surveyed his target. He was unsure, and he was looking to everyone else on what to do. He stood tense, and tried to glare but couldn't manage it as unsure as he was.
The Cullens looked back at them with clear questioning looks in their eyes and relaxed postures to show that they were not a threat.
"Shall I start introductions, or would you like to?" Carlisle asked the center man who looked to be paying the most attention to the Cullens as people rather than targets.
"You may start, I have more people and it would seem rude to start to blurt them all out without giving you a chance." He responded clearly. A few of the more tense postures relaxed a little. If your enemy offers you no sign of threat, give them no sign of threat in return.
"Very well," Carlisle nodded. "I am Carlisle Cullen, this is my family."
Esme introduced herself first, leaving their children to introduce themselves one after another; first Alice, then Edward, and Bella, Emmett, Jasper, and Rosalie in the end. The man smiled and nodded.
"I find it intriguing that you call your coven a family. It makes sense of course, but I haven't met a coven before that introduced themselves as such." He said, his eyes twinkling slightly.
"You haven't met many covens that tried to live as humans then, have you?" Esme laughed warmly.
"I can honestly say you would be a first for me." He bowed his head slightly, politely. "I'm Jonathan Silver, leader of the Onyx cult of Hunters. However, please don't worry about that, I am not an assignment to hunt your family. I know that not all vampires are evil blood-sucking demons."
"Thank you for the reassurance." Jasper said, more to himself than the opposing hunters.
The vampires introduced themselves after Jonathan. The girl's name was Skylar, the rugged looking biker called himself Dante, and the neat looking one gave his name as Gabriel. The humans were less enthusiastic. Neomi was the youngest girl, and short black-haired girl named herself as Blain. Sean was the unsure one with bronze hair, and Darren stood on the far side, furthest from him. Joseph was the one with the long hair, and Nicolas turned out to be Darren's cousin, which was why they looked so similar. Brian turned out to be the one with the intriguing white blonde hair. Jacelynn was the last to introduce herself, and she evidently gave herself the title of team mom when she did.
"Dante, Skylar, and myself are not a part of Jonathan's Onyx," Gabriel stated plainly. "I am the leader of a coven of vampires called Heaven and we hold sanctuary to all abandoned beings of this world. We are one of the few safe covens from the Hunters Association."
"Which is evidently why we are all here." Jonathan added. "We have come to give you clearance from the Association. You are to be reviewed by my team of hunters, as well as Gabriel's handpicked vampires. Know that this is only if you wish, you can personally appeal to the Association if you wish."
"We welcome you to evaluate us. We wouldn't want to trouble you at all." Carlisle smiled. "You did after all come all this way to met us."
"Thank you," Jonathan smiled. "So your evaluation begins. Joey, Dare, Blain, Sean; sequence one."
The four hunters stiffened, drew back, and launched themselves at the Cullens without a proper warning. The strange human hunters nearly flew at them, pulling weapons out of nowhere. Darren and Sean had no problem hiding their weapons prior to the attack, being that Darren had about a thousand hidden knifes and Sean just had to wrap the whip around himself under his shirt. It was a mystery however, how Blain hid her short katana-like swords, and Joey kept his long bladed staff out of view. But never the less, with the speed of their attack it made the Cullens defense slow and their reaction time too slow to ward off attack completely.
If this was their evaluation, what would be the proper response to get them to pass?
okay, yeah, I'm mean, leaving you on a cliff hanger like that, I was only going to introduce you to my characters, and there are a lot (thirty-seven total by book 3), but I thought I'd give you a bit of a hint as to what the plot line may or may not be. Trust me, this isn't what you may think, and my vampires are good vampire, and my hunters aren't evil. You just have to keep reading to find out who my villains are. I can tell you one thing though; the villains are not werewolves and the main ones won't be just another race of demons… Muhahaha, I'm evil, aren't I?
Well keep reading, hopefully you guys can help me figure out what to do and where to go on book three, it's a lot harder than it seems to write a continuous story in more than one book without making it seem like each book is too short. Anyway, happy reading, you know the drill!