Edward Cullen

I stalked my prey silently, keeping a large distance between the two of us. I was absolutely silent as I followed in pursuit, appearing entirely innocent to any onlookers or passing cars. I was one hundred yards away from him, easily, and to the casual observer, I was just another young guy walking home from the bars after a long night.

My prey was in a hurry to get to his destination. And for good reason, because he would only be safe from me if he got there.

Not that he would be arriving there any time soon. In fact, he never would after I was through with him.

His pace was quick but I kept up just fine, maintaining my distance and keeping my eyes directly on him. As a vampire, my night vision is perfect; I am a nocturnal hunter by nature. During the day I can see fine, but the sun is a bitch and saps a vampire's strength greatly. My enhanced senses are most keen in the night. So it was unfortunate for my target when he stopped walking and took out his cell phone to take a call. Unfortunate because I could hear every word he was saying, and unfortunate because the words he spoke sealed his fate from that moment on.

"I'm about twenty minutes away. No, I didn't see him there. Yes, I have it with me. No one saw it. I know. I hear you. You'll get it." He hung up and looked around him, perhaps because he was paranoid about being followed, or perhaps because he was a werewolf and he was always on the lookout for vampires to kill.

He was standing at the mouth of an alley. How convenient for me, I wouldn't have to break his head and then drag him to a dark alley to interrogate him. I tensed up, my body tingling with excitement, my heart pumping faster. As soon as he turned to begin walking again, I crossed the distance between us in a microsecond. I appeared in front of him.

"Fuckin' hell!" the wolf exclaimed out of surprise, reaching in his jacket pocket for what was probably a weapon. I was amused. I grabbed the arm he had stuffed in his jacket and squeezed with all my strength, hearing his bones begin to crunch in protest. He was just starting to scream in pain when I clamped a hand over his mouth and dragged him into the shadows of the alley.

I shifted the hand I had clamped over his mouth to cover his face and slammed his head right into the brick wall. His skull cracked in a delightful sound and he made a weak moan, all the volume he could muster after the blow. His knees gave out and I grabbed him by the lapels, picking up the wolf and bringing him eye level with me. He was young, too young to be any match for me. Why he was assigned the job that he had been assigned was beyond me; it was a task better left to an older wolf. Or several wolves, for that matter.

His eyes were glassy as they looked into mine.
"Don't pass out on me now sunshine, we're just starting" I said. I let go of him with my right hand and reached into his jacket to retrieve whatever weapon he'd gone for. I pulled out a pistol, cocked and locked. The wolf was a fool to think that a gun could harm me during the night, but the child obviously had no clue. Unless he had something to stab me through the heart with, I couldn't be stopped. I stuffed the gun into my belt at the small of my back and returned my attention to him.

"Now, you have two options. You can tell me where your den is, and I'll let you live, or you cannot tell me where your den is, and I'll kill you slowly. Your choice. But make up your mind quickly, I don't have all night and you're leaking." It was true; the back of his head was letting out a slow, thin, steady stream of blood.

"Don't…know where the den is…they don't let me see…have to go in blindfolded…" he muttered, trying to stay conscious. I narrowed my gaze and sifted through his words, trying to determine if he was lying or not. He was definitely young; he had probably only shifted three or four times so far in his life, which put him in his very early twenties. The wolves are highly secretive and untrusting of their own kind, so it was reasonable that a wolf as young as him was still denied the privilege of knowing his den location.

"Fair enough. Where is the letter you're carrying? I know you have it, and if you lie to me, I'll pull the eyes right from your skull with my fingers" I said. I was half hoping that he'd lie just so I could prove that I'd do it, but he was already frightened of me, so the extra terror would be marginal at best.

My enemy in fear is like a drug to me.

His words slurred even more. "Have…the letter…in my jacket…" I patted him down, feeling for the envelope when my handed landed on the prize. I slipped it from his inner jacket pocket and took a look.

A plain white envelope with a single word scrawled across the front; Sam.

Bingo. This would be a major turning point in the war between the vampires and the werewolves. Actually, if by turning point I mean that the wolves of the entire western coast would be eradicated, then yes, this would be it. The envelope was thick, which meant that it had all the contents that we'd thought it had. I was thoroughly pleased, but this had been way too easy.

I met the wolf's yellow gaze, unblinking and unapologetic. "Tell me. Why do you have this? You're just a boy, hardly cut out to even be fighting in this war, let alone carrying intelligence like this. So where are you friends?" I probably should have killed him and dumped the body by now, but if I were being followed by other wolves who had used him as bait, my departure would trigger them to make a move on me. The wolves would still think I was interrogating him so long as I stayed in the alley and he at least appeared to be alive.

"No…one…with me…they gave me…the list…because…thought would be better…give younger initiate the package…to cast doubt…like a red herring…" The wolf was fixing to take a permanent night-night, but he'd told me enough. They'd given him the package because he was a runt, so surely the vampires would be going after an older member to look for the package, meanwhile it would actually arrive via this young pup's hard work and their information would stay safe.

It was too bad that we weren't completely fucking retarded like they assumed us to be. Wolves have normal, human life spans, whereas vampires live forever. When you're around for more than a hundred years or so, you tend not to miss much.

I looked at the wolf and stared into his yellow eyes. He was a handsome kid, actually. Dark tanned skin and black hair pulled into a pony tail. It was almost a shame that I'd be making this handsome young guy a dead young guy.

"Thanks, wolf. I'm going to use this list to mobilize assassinations on every single member in here. Their families, too. Then we're going to use the information we torture out of the pack leaders to move east. Then do you know what we're going to do? We're going to slowly eradicate your filthy mongrel wolf friends until you join the dodos and passenger pigeons on the 'extinct species' list." The wolf's eyes grew slightly wider, as if the realization that his death tonight signaled the beginning of the end for the wolves had just hit him. Tears welled in his eyes as he processed the information, and I reached into his mind to see what he was thinking.

Images of failure raced through his mind. Images of the wolves being wiped out. Images of the vampires winning the war. Intense shame racked his mind and he began to cry harder as images of his family, his own pack, came rushing in. I could feel what he felt, think what he thought. I broke the mental connection and set him on his feet. He stumbled into the wall behind him and let his weight sag into the wall so it would support him, yet allow him to remain standing.

Even in death, the wolf would maintain his last shred of dignity.

"Thank you. You've been most helpful. It'll be okay, you know. I saw a movie about this once" I said to the boy. He looked at me in confusion and his eyes grew glassier. I stepped closer to him until we were face to face again.

I leaned in and whispered in his ear, "It was called 'All Dogs go to Heaven'".

I bared my fangs and bit him right in the carotid artery, opening a warm flood into my mouth. His blood poured into my gut and I felt little strength grow in my muscles and in my bones. Wolf blood doesn't sustain vampires very well; it's only slightly more sustaining than animal blood. I continued to drink until he was dry, an empty husk. The aftertaste in my mouth was not exactly pleasant, but I took great pleasure in having drunk him dry.

Drinking his blood and leaving him an empty shell, the very act of rendering him entirely purposeless in the world, was what mattered.

I stuffed the envelope into my jacket and looked around me. No wolves had run into the alley to stake me yet, so it was probably safe to assume that the kid hadn't been lying when he said that no one had come with him. My mind reading has been infallible for one hundred-and-seventy years thus far, and I hadn't sensed any lies when I'd read him.

I looked at his body and realized that I had to do something with it, because leaving a body with fang marks in the neck was not an option.

Humans are nothing if not inventive; one of their greatest gifts and greatest curses. They'd construct some hectic vampire scare in a heartbeat.

I took the gun out of my belt that I'd confiscated from the kid. I flipped the safety off and aimed right at his neck where I'd bitten it. Boom. The shot rang out with impressive report as the bullet hit its mark and left a very large entry wound, just like I'd wanted. Now he just looked like a guy who'd been mugged and shot in the throat after he'd been thrown to the ground. To make it believable, I stripped him of his wallet and took a look at his license. Jeremiah Fawkes was the kid's name. I pocketed the wallet and belted the gun.

Time to go. A gunshot would likely draw the authorities out, even this late, and the sun would be up soon, which meant I wouldn't be able to run at full speed or heal from injuries.

I got good and gone, flashing back to my car that I'd left parked on the side of the road when I'd spotted my target. I slid into the driver's seat of my Vanquish. It was kind of a flashy car for the area, but it was a sexy car and it was chic, and I loved breaking the speed limit into pieces with it. I started the engine and drove away, heading back to tell Carlisle of my success.

Isabella Swan

I woke up to a cold gust of air moving throughout my room. It felt less than perfect. I was under the covers and I debated with myself if I should get up or not, and looked over at the clock on the nightstand. 9:43 in the morning. It was Sunday, so I could sleep some more, but then I wouldn't sleep tonight and I needed to be ready for tomorrow…

Yeah. Time to get up.

I rolled out of bed and the floor was cold on my feet. I mentally cursed the fall air in Forks being as chilly as winter air.

Oh. I'll just move back to podunk, where it rains year round and it's always freezing and the floor is always cold in the morning. No big deal. Right?

Actually it was a big deal. I'd moved from Phoenix, Arizona to live with my dad and I was going to finish high school here. My mom had finally remarried, but with her new husband always moving and because I didn't want to be a burden for them and their constant travelling, I decided to stay with my dad. I hadn't seen him in forever, so it was actually nice to be spending so much time with him.

I'd come here three weeks ago, just in time for the start of the school year. I'd be a junior this year. I wasn't exactly thrilled to be starting at a new school, because being the new girl can really be depressing. I mean, you literally know nobody and they already have their friends from when they were freshmen. I knew one person here, technically. His name was Jacob. We'd known each other when we were kids and since I'd been back we'd hung out seven or eight times. We were close. I wished he went to Forks High, but he didn't, which was a complete bummer.

I would surely miss my friends from back home when I saw everyone hanging out with their friends. What made it worse was the fact that Forks High had about three hundred students.

My high school in Phoenix had had over three thousand.

But my dad, Charlie, had been telling me since he'd picked me up at the airport about how everyone in town was so excited to see the chief's daughter after all these years. That meant that every student at Forks High, in one way or another, would know of my existence and either hate me because I was new and different, or would treat me like an alien because I was new and different.

I'd be okay though. I could make new friends. And if they didn't like me, they would be really unhappy when I told them that I would be finishing high school here. If they thought I was some weird, strange 'foreigner', I could enrich their simple tribal culture with my experiences and tales of the wonders outside of Forks. Really, I was doing a public service by diversifying the natives.

I skipped down the stairs and stopped when I saw Charlie. He was watching Sports Center and eating scrambled eggs with bacon.

"Dad", I said sternly and with much volume. He jumped slightly and looked at me, giving me a 'what the hell expression'.

"There's bacon and you didn't tell me," I said with ice in my voice. Charlie's expression turned sullen and he looked down at his plate.

"I'm sorry Bells…I…I guess I wasn't thinking…can you find it in your heart to forgive me?" he muttered. He then looked back at me with the same 'my puppy just got hit by a Mack truck' expression.

I lost it and started laughing uncontrollably. Charlie and I hadn't seen each other from the time I was nine to the time I was sixteen, but we'd always been close, closer than my mom and I. The sarcasm rolled between us and we could do funny, mindless shit like I'd just done with no effort at all. He was laughing with me when he said, "There's more in the kitchen. We goin' back-to-school shopping today still?" he asked. I gave him a nod and went to claim the bacon that was still left. I hate eggs, but bacon is fabulous.

I took four strips and walked back into the living room. Charlie had flipped on the news during a commercial break on Sports Center. There was a breaking news headline.

"A man found this morning in a Port Angeles alleyway, shot in the throat in what police say is a simple mugging. A call was placed last night to the police at around 4:03 a.m. when a gunshot was heard in the area. By the time police arrived, the man had bled out and was dead."

The news anchor droned on and on about the case like it was the biggest news story since JFK was shot. In an area so small and so tight knit, it probably was the biggest case since JFK, but having lived in Phoenix where murders were a page six item in the newspaper, I wasn't impressed or concerned. I watched the lesser news stories as I munched on my bacon and decided that I should take a shower. I had a long drive to Wal-Mart and whatnot to get ready for.

Edward Cullen

"You made headlines, Edward. You're a star" said Carlisle dryly, muting the television when the news report of my handiwork in the night had made headlines. He and I were in the living room while Esme and Alice were sleeping. Jasper, Emmet and Rosalie were away in Los Angeles corresponding with some of our affiliates about the turned tide in the war. It was kind of weird with them not being here, because we usually stayed together, but Carlisle had told them to go as soon as I told Carlisle that I'd gotten the letter from the wolf pup. They would help the Los Angeles vampires prepare for the coming months of extermination and interrogation.

I opened the envelope that I'd procured the night before once more. I'd gone over the contents at least three times since I'd gotten it, but I still couldn't believe it. It was a handwritten letter to Sam Uley, the pack leader for the entire state of Washington, and a complete printout with the name and address of every regional pack leader in Washington, Oregon, and California. The letter was what made the contents make any sense at all, because such sensitive information wouldn't be communicated without very good reason. It read,

Sam,

Here is the information you requested. I give you leave to do whatever it is you need to do, so long as it does not go against my wishes, which you are already well aware of. Normally this kind of information would never be handed out in such a manner as this, but you have proven to be a capable and loyal pack leader, so I leave it to you to do this and do it right. Do not fail us.

Regards,

M. Richter

We had no idea who M. Richter was, but we would know once we got to Uley. He was the first step in the beginning of the end of the wolves.

Some would say that sitting on the information was the best way to go, but some also say that Jersey Shore is good television and that ShamWow actually works. When the pup hadn't arrived at the den like he'd said he would, the entire Washington pack would be on high alert and would presume the information to be compromised. Addresses would be changed, the pack leaders would go into hiding, and we'd be sitting on obsolete information.

Of course, there would be a grace period for us to work within, because the information of the list being compromised would be slow to get to every pack leader. They would have no clue that they needed to disappear and disappear fast. Every bit of information in the werewolf community is hand delivered. Archaic, but necessary, because the vampires have a very elaborate system for monitoring electronic communications, all of which are handled overseas.

"I don't know about being a star. That kid was really the star. After I told him I'd make his slobbering band of mongrels go the way of the dinosaurs, he stood up to me until I drained him dry" I said.

"Yes, well, you did well. The police aren't suspicious of anything and for them, everything is normal. Good work" said Carlisle as he gave me an easy smile and clapped me on the shoulder.

For a vampire who has been around for over four hundred years, Carlisle is really fucking chill. He is my maker, as he is the maker of all the rest of my brothers and sisters. He has a serene nature about him that inspires you to try and emulate him. He is the de facto leader of our coven and I wouldn't follow anyone else but Carlisle. Maybe Esme, because I consider her to be my mother the way I consider Carlisle to be my father.

"So now what happens?" I asked. Emmet and Rose were helping with preparation with the Los Angeles coven, Jasper was in Oregon giving the Salem coven a hand with their preparations, and the Denalis would be coming down from Alaska to give us a hand here at home. Our plan was to kill each pack leader on the list after we'd interrogated them as to what they were planning. If none of them gave us a bit of good information, they'd all be dead and whatever Sam Uley was planning would be utterly thwarted, so we would win no matter what.

"Well, really, just one more thing needs to be done" said Carlisle. He went over to the desk in the corner of the living room and began digging through some papers. He glanced over his shoulder at me and grinned at me. "How much did you like high school in the 90s, Edward?" he asked.

Okay…random question. "It was okay, I guess" I said. I'd posed as a high school student in 1994 to tail a wolf who was posing as a teacher. It had lasted about a month and had ended like most of my assignments ended: with a dead wolf. "Why?" I asked.

"Forks High School begins classes tomorrow" said Carlisle conversationally. He began idly digging through the papers on the desk again. I saw where this was going.

"Carlisle, no way. We just got the list of every pack leader on the west coast and you want me to go start high school? What the hell?" I asked. I couldn't follow his logic at all. There were no wolves in Forks High School, we'd made sure of that.

"There is a new student in town. Her name is Isabella Swan. She's the chief of polices' daughter. She starts school tomorrow" said Carlisle.

Okay. A new lunch special on the Forks menu. That was excellent and fine, but why was she important? We rarely tailed humans because they were generally useless as far as the war went.

Unless you count the fact that their blood is what feeds us, and if we're starved, we can't exactly fight a war.

"She has intel. She was friends with a boy who is a part of the Quileute wolf pack when she was just a girl, and since she's been back, they've reconnected. We need to start making them disappear one by one until we can stand against them. Sam Uley and any pack leaders in Washington have probably already gone into hiding because they are geographically closest to Uley, and they will find out before anyone else does that the letter was intercepted. If we can use the Swan girl to keep close to the Quileute tribe, they can't disappear on us. "

"So how does this Swan girl act as an asset? I mean, if I get anywhere near this wolf friend of hers, he'll immediately know what I am and I'll be forced to kill him. And won't that just give the Quileutes a hard on?" I said.

"She's an asset because she's a way for you to get close to the wolf without arousing suspicion. And you won't have to kill him. He hasn't has his first shift yet, and he shouldn't for at least another year or two. Plenty of time" said Carlisle. But plenty of time for what?

"Plenty of time for what?" I asked, wishing we could skip all the droll details and get to the point.

"You get close to the Swan girl. Be her friend. While we begin taking care of pack leaders further to the south, you work on the Swan girl and getting intel on the Quileutes. You can't tail the boy by yourself, because he is practically invisible except when he sees the girl. If he is visible when he isn't around the girl, he's deep in Quileute territory and you'd be a dog treat for the wolves" said Carlisle. He took a sheet of paper off of the desk and handed it to me.

A class schedule. A map of the school. A supplies checklist.

You have got to be fucking kidding.

"You have got to be fucking kidding" I said to Carlisle. I was so not going to go and play pretend with some human girl when I should be breaking wolf necks.

"I'm not fucking kidding." Carlisle said as he smirked. "Look. I know you'd rather be off killing wolves and being active in the war, but right now this is the most important part of our plan. Without this, we have nothing. We're starting in the south with assassinations because word won't travel down south fast enough for them to hide. But the wolves closest to home in Washington have probably already begun to go invisible. Get close to the Swan girl, and when she is going to be around the wolf, invite yourself or find some way to get close to him, and go from there."

I thought about it. I certainly didn't like the idea of going back to high school…but I also didn't like the idea of the vampires losing the war.

"I…fuck. I can't say no. I guess I'm going to be a Forks High Spartan. Rah. Wooh" I said in a deadpan voice. Carlisle gave me the rundown on when to be at the school.

"Arrive at seven. You have to go to guidance and get your books. Then you basically follow your class schedule as loosely as possible and don't bring attention to yourself. The entire point in going is to be where the Swan girl is. Here's a picture of her." He produced a picture from a folder.

She was an attractive young woman, no doubt. She was of average height, or at least appeared to be, with long mahogany hair. She had a delicious set of hips on her and her lips had an amazing pout to them. Her breasts were excellent, proportional to the rest of her, which made me think…

"Carlisle, when was this photo taken" I asked.

"A week or so ago. She came into town three weeks ago and I sent Alice out to get a photo of her in preparation for this" he said.

He'd been planning this far in advance? It made sense, if I thought about how long we'd taken to get our hands on the letter. But still, it would have been nice to have gotten some prior notice.

Then again, there was no saying we'd ever find or get the list, so I could understand the lack of disclosure.

I looked at the photo once more. She really was beautiful, to be honest. She was in front of what appeared to be the front door to a house, likely hers. She was looking off to the right and appeared to be in mid stride. Alice had taken a photo of her walking out of her front door.

"And this is the wolf" said Carlisle, producing another photo.

Another Alice photo op. He was a wolf alright. About six feet tall, judging from the photo. Long black hair done up in twin braids. Tanned skin and a slender physique. When he shifted for the first time, he'd grow about three inches and put on about eighty pounds of muscle.

Talk about a growth spurt.

"What's the wolf's name?" I asked Carlisle.

Carlisle looked at me. "Jacob Black."