RED NIGHT ~ VAMPIRE FILES TRILOGY (Book 1)

25

Thanksgiving Day.

I don't know what I was thinking about inviting my best friend, two vampires, a vampire hunter, and a security specialist/ex-cop to Thanksgiving dinner. I'm having an anxiety attack imagining all the things that could go wrong.

My first concern is that I've never cooked a turkey in my life. It sounded like a good idea at first, but ordering Chinese would have been the safer call.

Suddenly, I feel personally responsible for everyone's holiday experience. What if I ruin the meal? What if Adam's first Thanksgiving celebration sucks? What if Russell figures out that some of my guests aren't what they appear? What if Dayna gets wind that her current boyfriend was kind of my doing? Yep, one big flipping disaster waiting to happen. How could something not go wrong?

Gabe has been sensing my anxiety and frustration all morning and is currently hiding on the balcony while I'm skimming the Internet to make sure I prepared the turkey correctly. It was merely an accident that it was thawing in my fridge for several days because there wasn't enough room in the freezer. I had no idea that it took three days to thaw a turkey.

This is one of those times that I could have benefited from some maternal guidance. I miss my parents, especially my mom today. Okay, snap out of it, Sam. I can't afford to get melancholy on top of the stress. Bad things could happen to the turkey.

Russell is also on my mind this morning. What do I say if he notices that Adam and Jacob don't actually eat with us?

What am I saying? He will notice. Nothing gets past that man. He'll be curious as to my relationship with them. He may even try to gather enough information to run background checks. That's not going to go over well. I know Russell, he's like a pit bull with a bone. He won't let go.

I'm expecting Adam, Jacob, and Dayna to arrive around two o'clock. Russell is due at three, and he usually doesn't hang around long after a meal. I think he visits with old officer buddies at the union watering hole.

Dayna is bringing rolls and wine, and I'm sure she'll help me serve. Russell is bringing his favorite beer. Gabe picked up wine and a pecan pie when he went to the grocery with me on Monday. Adam is bringing wine and a pumpkin pie as well. For some reason, I can't envision him walking into a grocery store and standing in line with a bottle of wine and pie. Oh, to be a fly on the wall. If the meal's a total disaster, we should be well supplied to drown our sorrows.

Gabe, Adam, and I did manage to hash out a pretty good plan for trapping or killing Zac. After several heated discussions about how, when, and where to lay our trap, we finally settled on the fitness club. It's still a long shot considering he may or may not take the bait. I have a strong feeling he will.

It's my opinion, and we all concur, that waiting will most likely drive Zac bat-shit crazy. Adam feels it's a fifty-fifty chance. He agrees that Zac becomes more aggressive when he's been denied something, and that could work to our advantage. On the other hand, he hasn't evaded Adam for five centuries because he's sloppy or careless.

I'm the ace in this game. Zac will not expect Adam to agree to use me as bait. This concept has been the cause of most of our heated arguments over the last few days. Gabe was furious when Adam and I presented him with the idea. His intense refusal to go along with the idea caused Adam to start second-guessing his original decision.

This conversation went back and forth for hours on end. We took long breaks before coming back to the table to hash it out all over again. Eventually, Adam and I managed to convince Gabe that it was a viable, solid plan. Once he agreed, the three of us got busy working out the details, and let me say, these guys are all about details. A couple nights I would go to bed while they would stay up discussing the plan and any number of possible outcomes.