Dawn and Stanzer came through the door, carrying cartons of eggnog and brightly colored fruit pastries to contribute to the party. Something else came with them.
Maurice's first instinct was to duck. If his exile spell hadn't bound him to the Human realms, he would have streaked for the closest available slit in reality and taken his chance on whatever dimension he landed in.
The something was alert, sentient, watchful, and buzzed with power. The faint buzz he got from Dawn and Stanzer was soothing and warming compared with this sensation. It made his hair stand on end--on his head, his arms, and his wings. The worst part was that he couldn't see the source of that alertness and power.
Now he had a good idea how Meggie felt, when she knew he was there and she couldn't see or hear him, and they could only communicate when he wrote notes to her. Freaky was a good word to start with.
Then something coalesced into being, walking behind Dawn and Stanzer as they approached the long refreshment table between the counter and the tree. Maurice had an impression of big, silvery teeth and electric blue eyes and...fur?
He nearly yelped and jumped up into the air when the something solidified into an enormous dog, somewhere between an Akita and a wolf, its head level with Dawn's shoulder, walking behind her and Stanzer. It was big and dark blue and black, with electric blue sparks zinging and swooping all over it. What made it worse was that two people walked right through the big dog. It didn't flicker like a bad hologram, and the people didn't react.
"Hey, Angela..." Maurice swallowed hard and wished he had been a smart-mouth again so Angela had exiled him to the position of angel at the top of the tree. Then again, an inter-dimensional big bad wolf could probably find him at the top of the tree, too, without any trouble.
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