Titans of Chaos

He walked across the snowy road and we followed him.

I noticed invisible forces leaving his body and reaching up to nearby lampposts. "Victor!" Iwhispered. "Are you knocking out the cameras? I think those are just for traffic, not part of thehospital. You know, to catch jaywalkers and stuff. They're innocent."

Victor said darkly, "Cameras like that are always put up by men like Boggin. I am sure whoeverput them up told his students they were for their own good, too, using the same jolly tones ourBoggin uses."

At the front door, Victor manipulated the lock mechanism and the wires I described to him. Thedoor clicked open. Quentin brought out from beneath his cloak a severed human hand dipped inwax, and he carefully lit each of the fingers on fire. Holding it before him, he strode down thecorridors. He stood with his eerie candle between us and the main desk where the guard wassleeping, and the smoke from the candles reached like tentacles toward the guard's face. We allmade noise as we crept past him, but somehow, the guard did not wake.

The elevators were locked down at night. Rather than asking us to trace wires and locks andfiddle with the unfamiliar controls, Vanity gave Colin the high sign. Colin grinned a wicked grin,stepping forward. He grew at least two inches, and his muscles swelled and thickened on hisframe, until his coat buttons and seams were straining. Then, like some abominable snowman, hejust plunged his bare hands into the steel doors and tore them from their tracks.

Victor had him tear one metal door in half, which made such a noise that it should have set theentire ward screaming, but Quentin's candle protected us, or something did. Colin thrust thebroken door into the empty elevator shaft, and we all stepped on it, and Victor levitated us up tothe third floor.

This time, before Colin could show off, I reached into the locking mechanism and removed thelittle iron pins through the untouched surface of the door, and the doors could be slid asidewithout further ado.

The corridor was a drab olive hue, thick-shadowed in the light of a single night-bulb held in acage of wires on the ceiling. Vanity started looking at the room numbers painted on the wall, but Ijust took her elbow and pointed.

And here was our next locked door in an evening of locked doors.

I whispered, "There are five of us, and five ways to open this door. Who does the honor, Leader?"

Vanity whispered back, "How do you figure five?"