“Yes,” said Victor.

The man surveyed him. “You look like a narc.”

“So I’ve been told,” said Victor, spreading his arms, inviting a search.

The man patted him down, then led him through.

Malcolm Jones was sitting behind a large desk in an expensive suit, a gleaming silver gun resting atop a stack of bills at his elbow. Three more men perched on various pieces of furniture; one watched the flat-screen mounted on the wall, another played on his phone, the third eyed the line of coke Jones was cutting on his desk.

None of them seemed overly concerned by Victor’s arrival.

Only Jones bothered to look up. He wasn’t young, but he had that hungry, almost wolfish look that came with people on the rise. “Who’re you?”

“New customer,” said Victor simply.

“How’d you hear of me?”

“Word spreads.”

Jones preened at that, clearly flattered by the idea of his budding notoriety. He gestured at the empty chair across the desk. “What are you looking for?”

Victor lowered himself into the chair. “Drugs.”

Jones gave him a once-over. “Huh, would have taken you for a weapons guy. Are we talking heroin? Coke?”

Victor shook his head. “Prescription.”

“Ah, in that case . . .” Jones waved a hand, and one of his men rose and opened a locker, displaying an array of plastic pill bottles.

“We’ve got oxy, fentanyl, benzos, addy . . .” recited Jones as the other guy lined the bottles on the desk.

Victor considered his options, wondering where to start.

The episodes were multiplying, and nothing he did seemed to make a difference. He’d tried avoiding his power, on the theory that it was a kind of battery, one that charged with use. When that didn’t work, Victor changed tactics, and tried using his power more, on the theory that perhaps it was a charge he had to diffuse. But that approach yielded the same results—again the buzz grew louder, again it became physical, again Victor died.

Victor surveyed the array of pills.

He could chart the electrical current’s progress, but he couldn’t seem to change it.

From a scientific perspective, it was damning.

From a psychological one, it was worse.

The pain itself he could hijack, to a point, but pain was only one facet of the nervous system. And only one aspect of most opiates. They were suppressants, designed not only to smother pain, but also sensation, heart rate, consciousness—if one kind didn’t suffice, then he’d need a cocktail.

“I’ll take them,” he said.

“Which ones?”

“All of them.”

Jones smiled coolly. “Slow down, stranger. There’s a house limit of one bottle—I can’t go giving you my whole supply. Next thing I know, it shows up on a corner at triple the price—”

“I’m not selling,” said Victor.

“Then you don’t need much,” said Jones, his smile tightening.

“Now, as for payment—”

“I said I’d take them.” Victor leaned forward. “I never said anything about payment.”

Jones laughed, a humorless, feral sound, taken up in a chorus by his men. “If you were planning to rob me, you could have at least brought a gun.”