Re: The New Year
These houses were all relatively new. Cisco remembered Tim telling him about the construction, the worries of the old locals about the influx of wealthy landowners driving up the price of living out here in nowhere country. In the end, though, wealthy landowners proved to be the most oblivious, the kind that didn't know a wolf from a dog, and the sort that weren't liable to camp out in the forest on full moons and see something they shouldn't. For the most part they stayed in their mansions, and the Pack in their trailers, and they were easy neighbors to tolerate.
There were a great many trees here around the circuit of the house, and Cisco ran it carefully; not in a hurry, not sly like a fox, but staying out of direct view of the windows, too. He put his nose in the air and let his mouth water at the smell of that meat in the air, and smiled to himself when he caught a whiff of cigar, which Santa had mentioned before. The car explained why Santa could afford the (in Cisco's view) extravagant Christmas presents.
In the end, the wolf settled down on his haunches into the brush to regard the kitchen window, feeling that his curiosity should be satisfied. And it was... mostly. The Christmas kid told him he should be guilty about spying, but he didn't really listen.