Scott retreated, his heart hammering in his chest.  As he watched in horror, the mannikins began to drop, lowered to the ground on their barbed-wire nooses.  One by one they fell, some touching down gracefully, others landing awkwardly and clumsily on the floor.  But all of them, once down, turned to face him--and then began lurching toward him.  They moved with stilted, stuttering movements, like malfunctioning clockwork mechanisms, moving slowly one moment and then quickly and violently the next.  Their barbed-wire nooses hung loosely about their necks like macabre jewelry.<br/><br/>"Deacon," he managed, before he saw a steely glint on the end of one of the mannikins' arms.  There was a small, sharp razorblade there, in place of where a hand should be.  Others had hooks, or hatchets, or small three-pronged tridents.  As he watched, in shock, one lifted its arm and stabbed inexpertly, desperately, at the air.<br/><br/>He couldn't run.  There was only Deacon and the office behind him.   His blood pounding in his ears, he raised his axe.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>Wait</em></span>, whispered a tiny voice in his ear.<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>You know how to deal with this.  </em></span><br/><br/>Something took over.  He let it. He was far too frightened to raise any objection.  He raised his hand, heard himself say something that he would have no idea how to repeat.<br/><br/>The mannikins turned, abruptly, turning to face each other.  Then they begin to attack each other, stabbing, clawing, and hacking at themselves with their improvised weapons.  There was a wooden sound, a sound like tortured wind chimes, as the wood split and fell apart within the orgy of violence.<br/><br/>Scott couldn't resist; he joined in as well, raising his axe and swinging it with all his strength, feeling a perverted sense of glee and satisfaction when his blade split heads and severed bodies.  He hacked and hacked, thrilling as they fell before him, one by one.<br/><br/>As the last one fell apart, his axe blade severed a loop of barbed wire that had been tightly wound about one of the mannikin torsos.  It whipsawed, lashing out to slash him across the face.  The spell was instantly broken; he staggered backward, dropped the axe, and blinked.  It had missed his eye, thank God, but his cheek was on fire with pain.  When he raised his fingers and touched it to the spot, they came away covered with blood.  He felt it ooze down his face and drip from his chin.