“You get off Nikky.” He lifted the hatchet threateningly.
“Might have a point there, son.” I did shift my position; with bright lights on it was downright embarrassing, the way Nikky’s nightgown’d been torn. Especially since another woman, a few years older than Nikky, clomped hurriedly downstairs in dressing-gown and mules to seize the boy, gasp at the burning chair, and cry out to Nikky;
“Hold him, while I phone the police!”
Nikky said calmly, “Please don’t, Miss Ellen. Just open the door.”
Miss Ellen ran.
I let go of the tornado beneath me, made a grab for the gun. It was a pump gun. I broke it, fast, to make sure there were more shells in it.
The dogs raced into the hall.
“Call ’em off,” I stepped behind a wingback chair, “or I’ll kill ’em off.”
They bounded into the room.
“Don’t you shoot my dogs,” the boy shouted in a frenzy. “Down, Castor! Down! Pollux!”