Zinnia

Chapter 21

The chaos rolled toward him, a tidal wave of darkness that would consume the matrix of his soul. Zinnia's face was the only point of reference that he had left. He knew he would not have it for long. He wished she would smile just once more. He wanted to hold the memory close as the storm swept over him.

But she was glaring at him.

"Nick, Nick, can you hear me?"

He tried to reach out to touch her face but his hand would not obey the command. His fingers folded into a tight fist instead. He tried to use the fist to fend off the whirling lights but there were too many.

Zinnia's face vanished into the depths of the night. The panic that he had been trying to cage broke free. He lurched toward the place where she had been a second earlier, but she was not there.

"Zinnia." His scream echoed in the winds of chaos. He did not know whether he had uttered it aloud or if the sound he had made was only in his head.

Crazy. He was going crazy. He stared into the depths of the dark waves hurtling down on him and he realized that he was looking at the forces of his own psychic energy whirling out of control.

"Nick, listen to me. Don't you dare slip away from me. Do you hear me?"

Zinnia was yelling at him. Her voice reached him through the thunder of meaningless noise. That was Zinnia for you. Nothing could hold her down for long. When she had a point to make, she made sure it got heard.

"Damn you, Nick, pay attention. Squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

He could not figure out how to give the instruction to his fingers.

"Nick, hang on. The ambulance is here now."

More lights appeared in the storm. Meaningless.

No doctor could save him from the sea of chaos. He tried to anchor himself, but there was nothing that he could hold. The world itself was no longer stable.

The matrix was coming apart, fracturing into millions of bits of meaningless data. No connections. No links. No pattern.

The truly terrifying thing was that in another moment he would no longer be able to frame such a logical coherent thought. He would not be able to contemplate his own madness.

In another few seconds he would be trapped forever in chaos.

"Nick, pay attention. I want you to link with me."

He knew the voice belonged to Zinnia, but he could no longer comprehend the words.

"Link, damn you. Do it now."

Something appeared in the spinning darkness. A stable glowing object. Clear as crystal. He gazed at it with hungry longing. A great need arose within him.

"Focus your talent through the prism, Nick. Don't think about anything else. Just send your power through the prism. I'll keep it safe."

Safe. He would be safe if he could just figure out what the voice was talking about.

The prism shimmered, untouched by the storm that howled around it. Nick fought his way toward the crystal. If he could just touch it, he would be safe.

It was the longest journey of his life. In the midst of it he forgot why he was battling his way through the raging tides of uncontrolled energy. He only knew that he had to get to the prism. It compelled him with a power that could stand against chaos.

"Come to me, Nick. Focus the energy through me. Channel it into the prism."

One more faltering step and he managed to put his hand on the crystal. At last he had something solid to cling to in the spinning darkness that enveloped the metaphysical plane.

The winds of psychic energy shrieked around him, trying to tear him away from the crystal.

Rage blossomed. "No. I am the master of the matrix."

Somewhere in the darkness he heard a faint response.

"Yes, Nick. You are the master of the matrix. You control the energy. It does not control you. Not unless you let it. I've given you a prism. Use it. Use it, damn it."

He would not be torn from his anchor. With savage determination he clung to the prism. He chose the closest wave of ravenous energy and fed it to the glowing crystal.

To his amazement, it obeyed his will. It slammed through the prism and emerged as a band of controlled energy.

He reached for the next crashing wave. It, too, entered the prism as a piece of chaos and was transformed into a controllable band of power.

He grabbed another.

And another.

A new fear replaced the old. What if the prism could not handle so much raw energy.

But the crystal did not waver or weaken as he shoved power through it.

Slowly the chaos faded. The psychic talent that slammed through the crystal and roared across the metaphysical plane was as powerful as ever, but thanks to the prism it was a force that could be controlled.

As long as it was controllable, he would not be swallowed up by chaos. He would not go crazy as long as he kept feeding energy to the prism.

"He seems to have calmed considerably during the past hour," the doctor said. The name tag on her jacket read DR. MILDRED FERGUSON. Her dark brown skin glowed warmly in the lights of the bedside monitors.

The overhead lamps had been turned off in an effort to create a more soothing environment for the patient. Standard procedure in cases of crazy-fog overdose, Dr. Ferguson had explained. Zinnia was not certain that Nick would have noticed, one way or the other. As far as she could tell, he was unaware of anything except the battle for survival that he was waging on the metaphysical plane.

Dr. Ferguson glanced at Zinnia. "We may be through the crisis."

"You aren't certain?"

"Crazy-fog is unpredictable stuff." Dr. Ferguson's brown eyes were kind but troubled. "It just appeared on the streets a few months ago and we don't know much about it yet. We have learned that it affects people in different ways, depending on the syn-psych profile of the patient."

"Nick is a matrix."

"So you said. To be frank, we've never seen a matrix-talent under the influence of fog, let alone a high-class matrix. We don't know what to expect."

"I understand." It wasn't easy talking to Dr. Ferguson while she held the focus on the metaphysical plane. There was so much power pouring through the prism now that Zinnia could barely concentrate on anything else.

"Miss Spring, as I'm sure you're well aware, people who manifest a talent for Synergistic Matrix Analysis are the least understood by the syn-psych experts."

"I know."

"The lack of information is partly the fault of the talents, themselves, of course. By nature they tend to be secretive and reclusive. They won't allow themselves to be properly studied and tested." Dr. Ferguson sighed. "Unfortunately, that means that when this sort of thing happens, we're left with very little in the way of syn-psych data to guide us."

"How long will the drug be active in his system?"

"Fortunately crazy-fog metabolizes relatively quickly. Most of it will be gone in a few hours." Dr. Ferguson hesitated. "I must warn you that one of the problems in this case was that the dose he received was extremely large and very pure."

"He's back in control on the metaphysical plane. It's taking everything he's got to deal with his psychic energy, but he is managing to handle it."

Dr. Ferguson's dark brows drew together. "You're still holding the focus for him?"

"Yes."

"Very few prisms can work for extended periods of time with a matrix. They're not quite normal."

Zinnia smiled wanly. "I'm not exactly a normal prism."

"Even so, you must be getting close to psychic exhaustion. How much longer can you hold the focus?"

Zinnia tightened her grip on Nick's hand. "As long as he needs it."

He heard voices. Familiar voices. A man and the woman who kept him sane. They were arguing.

"Get out of here, Feather." The woman was furious. "I told the nurse not to let anyone into this room."

"Don't give me orders, lady. I don't work for you. I work for Nick. Why didn't you send for me when it happened?"

"I was too busy getting him to the hospital."

"Bat-snake shit. You coulda told someone to call. Instead, I have to find out from Nelson Burlton on the late-night news."

"Stay away from the bed, damn you." The woman sounded wild now. "If you don't get away from him, I'll scream for help."

"Hey, leggo my arm. What the hell is wrong with you? I got a right to visit my boss in the hospital."

"You're not here to visit him. You're here to kill him."

"Huh? Kill Nick? Five hells. Are you crazy or somethin'?"

"He told me that you had instructions," the woman said grimly. "That you would know what to do in a situation like this."

"Yeah. That's right. I got my instructions."

"The only thing Nick fears is the possibility that he might go insane. He told you that if that ever happened, he wanted you to put him out of his misery, didn't he? But he's not going crazy, Feather. I'm holding the focus for him. He's going to be all right."

"If you think Nick would ask someone to slit his wrists for him, you're the loony one, lady. He'd never put that kind of burden on someone else. If he wanted to commit suicide, he'd do the job, himself."

"Are you telling me that you're not here to kill him?"

"Hell, no. I'm here because I'm his friend and because I'm also his next-in-command. If somethin' happens to him, I'm supposed to take care of things at the casino."

"What do you mean?"

"Lady, Nick, here, employs a coupla hundred people at Chastain's Palace. Folks depend on him. He's got responsibilities."

"And you're the one who's supposed to take care of those responsibilities if he can't, is that it?"

"You got it right, lady. About time."

"Well, nothing is going to happen to him." There was absolute conviction in the woman's voice. "He'll be fine in a few more hours. The doctor says the last of the crazy-fog will have been flushed out of his system by morning."

"Glad to hear that."

"So why don't you leave? I'll call you when he comes out of it."

"You know somethin'? You're as suspicious as he is."

"Leave. Now."

"Okay, okay. You're some piece of work, you know that? Wonder if the boss knows what he's getting into with you."

"Feather?"

"Yeah?"

"Nick says you have contacts on the street."

"So?"

"If you want to make yourself useful," the woman said slowly, "why don't you have your contacts look for the two men who did this. In the confusion, they both got away before the cops arrived."

There was a short silence.

"You saying what I think you're saying, lady?"

"This was no ordinary mugging attempt. Those two men were waiting for us when we got off the elevator. The doctor says the dose of the drug that Nick received was very strong and very pure. If those two junkies already had their fix for the night, why would they bother to rob us?"

"Good point. If they already had the crazy-fog, the only thing they would have been thinking about was getting off on it. Fog-heads don't tend to worry much about the future. All they care about is the next fix."

"The two who attacked us did not fight as if they were on drugs. What's more, I'm sure I heard one of them say something about how Nick would soon go crazy."

"Maybe you're right," the man called Feather said. He sounded thoughtful now. "Maybe I best go make myself useful."

"Do that."

Nick was amused at the woman's curt authoritative tone, but there was no way to laugh on the metaphysical plane. He was too busy shoving wild power through the glowing crystal.

He was aware of the warmth first. Her hand was wrapped around his. He could feel the pleasant heat of her palm seeping into his cold fingers. Then he realized that the entire left side of his body was warm. He could feel the curve of her hip pressed against him.

He opened his eyes and saw the narrow band of morning sunlight that had managed to slip between the drawn shades. When he turned his head on the pillow he saw Zinnia asleep beside him.

He did not know when he had finally finished wrestling the demons of his psychic energy. He only knew that at some point during the endless night he had at last achieved a state of calm exhaustion, thanks to Zinnia. She had held the focus until the storm had passed.

Even a full-spectrum prism should have burned out quickly in the face of the ceaseless waves of raw, high-class matrix-talent that Zinnia had handled last night. Psychic burnout was nature's way of protecting prisms from being overpowered and controlled by a talent whose energy level was higher than the prism's. The burnout was a temporary condition. Unpleasant, but not permanent.

But Zinnia had not burned out. She was every bit as strong as he was. Nick smiled at the thought.

Her lashes fluttered. For a few seconds she seemed disoriented. Then her eyes cleared. "You're awake."

"And reasonably sane, thanks to you."

She pushed herself up to a sitting position. "My God, you scared the living daylights out of me."

"Believe me, you couldn't have been half as scared as I was." He reached up to run a hand through her tangled hair. "I have never been so glad to see anyone as I am to see you right now."

"Do you feel all right?"

"Never better." He smiled. "Which is pretty amazing, considering the fact that I spent the night in the company of a genuine psychic vampire."

She halted half on and half off the bed. Her eyes widened. "Are you calling me a psychic vampire?"

"I'm calling you mine, Zinnia Spring." He pulled her back down on top of him and kissed her deeply.

When he released her, she smiled at him. But there was a wistful sadness in her eyes that worried him almost as much as the winds of chaos had.

"Zinnia?"

"Don't move. I've got to call Dr. Ferguson."

The door opened just as Zinnia stabbed a call button. A middle-aged woman in a badly wrinkled medical jacket walked into the room. She looked weary, but when she saw Nick sitting up in the bed, her dark brown eyes brightened with satisfaction.

"Welcome back to the physical plane, Mr. Chastain. I'm Dr. Ferguson." She moved toward the bed. "You had us worried there for a while. But Miss Spring assured us that you were keeping yourself busy elsewhere."

"Very busy." Nick rubbed the stubble on his jaw. "What day is this?"

"The morning after the ball," Dr. Ferguson said with a quick surprising chuckle. "You and Miss Spring will be thrilled to know that you're in the papers."

"Because of the attack in the garage?" Zinnia asked.

"Not exactly." Dr. Ferguson held up a copy of Synsation.

Zinnia groaned. "Oh, no, not again."

Nick studied the picture of himself sprawled on the floor of the Founders' Club lobby. In the photo Zinnia knelt anxiously at his side. Rexford Eaton stood over him, fists clenched. Daria and Bethany wore expressions of angry dismay. A ring of well-dressed spectators stared in shock.

"Take your time," Dr. Ferguson said. "I've got to see to another patient." She looked vastly amused as she left the room.

Nick read the first paragraph of the story.

Life in High Society. Things went from bad to worse for Nick Chastain last night. Following this bruising encounter with one of the Scarlet Lady's old flames, he wound up in the hospital after a mugging in the Founders' Club garage. No word on the extent of the damage, but rumor has it one of the attackers hit him with a dose of crazy-fog. Wonder if things were a trifle more civilized in the Western Islands?

"Now, don't get excited, Nick." Zinnia touched his shoulder. "You're still recovering. You need to stay calm."

Nick smiled with deep satisfaction. "Why should I get excited? Cedric Dexter finally got it right this time."

"What do you mean?"

He tapped the paper with one finger. "I mean that with this photo, I now have grounds for a protracted lawsuit that will drag Rexford Eaton through the courts for months."

Zinnia narrowed her eyes. "You goaded him on purpose last night, didn't you? You knew Cedric Dexter was skulking around the lobby?"

"Saw him when I went to get your coat." Nick scanned the next paragraph of the article. "I suppose it was too much to hope that Dexter would have gotten a description of the two muggers."

"Feather is looking for them." Zinnia's brows snapped briskly together. "Nick, about this lawsuit. I really don't think it's a good idea. I appreciate that you want to get some revenge on Eaton and Daria and Bethany for what they did to me, but a long court battle will cost a fortune."

"I can afford it."

"You always say that. But some things aren't worth the price and this is one of them. Let it go, Nick. That picture is punishment enough for those three. It'll take weeks for them to live it down."

She was probably right, he thought, but he was reluctant to give up his newly hatched scheme. On the other hand, the last thing he wanted at that moment was an argument with Zinnia. The melancholic expression in her eyes a few minutes ago still worried him.

"I'll think about it," he said.

He was still pondering the look in Zinnia's eyes a few hours later when the door of the hospital room opened with a sharp bang. A vision in black leather, studs, and chains stalked toward the bed. Short, stark white hair bristled. Boot heels rang on the tile. Dark eyes glowered ferociously.

Nick put down the notepad he had been using to make a list of instructions for Feather. "Clementine Malone, I presume?"

"Damn right." Clementine propped one booted foot on the nearest chair and braced her forearm on her leather-clad thigh. "I think we'd better talk."

"About Zinnia?"

"Yes. About Zinnia. She works for me and I look out for my employees. I've tried to stay out of this, but now things have gone too far. What in five hells are you up to, Chastain?"

"I enjoy her company. What makes you think I'm up to anything other than the obvious?"

"Bat-snake shit. You're a matrix." Clementine scowled. "Matrix-talents are anything but obvious. The stronger they are, the more secretive, devious, manipulative, and downright sneaky they get."

"We've gotten a bad rap."

"Sure. And I'll bet you refund to your customers all the money you take from them at your casino, too."

"I didn't say I was stupid."

"No one's accusing you of stupidity. What are your intentions toward Zinnia?"

"My intentions?"

"I know you're registering on the sly with a matchmaking agency. And I know Zinnia's registration is inactive because she was declared unmatchable. Which pretty much means that you don't plan to marry her."

"Do you always leap to conclusions?"

"Come off it, Chastain. Zinnia says you want a wife from a wealthy upper-class family. Her clan used to meet that criteria but it doesn't anymore. It's fallen a long way since the bankruptcy. Besides, even if everything were hunky dory in all the other departments, I doubt that the two of you could be matched. Everyone knows the agencies never match high-class talents and full-spectrum prisms."

"I hear it happens occasionally."

"Try hardly ever." Clementine's mouth curved with disdain. "Zinnia says you've got a plan to buy respectability."

"It's a good plan. What's more, it's working."

Clementine gave him a mocking sneer. "The daily photos in Synsation are part of your master plan?"

"Minor setbacks," he assured her. "They won't be allowed to get in my way."

"Doubt if anything much gets in your way." She took her foot down off the chair and planted her hands on her sturdy hips. "So we're back to the basic question. Where does Zinnia fit into your matrix?"

"I'm going to marry her."

Clementine gaped at him for a few seconds. When she closed her mouth her teeth snapped together. "Are you crazy?"

"I think maybe I was for a while. But I'm not anymore."

"Have you told Zinnia that you plan to marry her?"

"No. And I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your mouth shut until I can deal with that end of things."

"Why in hell would she marry you?"

"She says she's in love with me," Nick said.

"I was afraid of that. But it doesn't make any difference. She would never marry someone who wasn't a good match. And she's unmatchable."

"I'm in love with her."

"I think we're talking lust here, not love. And maybe you like the fact that she can handle your talent, too." Clementine snorted. "Easy to see how a matrix could mistake that for love."

"I know the difference now," Nick said steadily. "There's nothing like looking into the face of chaos to help a matrix make a few obvious connections."

"Think so?" Clementine looked distinctly skeptical. "There's still the other problem. You and she are hardly likely to get matched. Especially given the fact that Zinnia's registration isn't even active."

"Don't worry about it. I've got a plan."

The ringing of the phone awakened Zinnia. She opened her eyes and glanced at the bedside clock. Nearly four in the afternoon. She had been dozing most of the day since she had returned from the hospital that morning. The long night had exhausted her physical as well as psychic energy, but she sensed that she was recovering swiftly.

She listened while the answering machine picked up the call.

"Zinnia? This is your Aunt Willy. I have been trying to reach you all day. Why didn 't you tell me that Mr. Chastain was a member of the Founders' Club? You never mentioned that you were going to the annual charity ball. By the way, I wonder if Mr. Chastain ought to consider a lawsuit against that dreadful tabloid and Rexford Eaton, too. Give me a call as soon as you get in."

Zinnia heard the new note of respect in her aunt's voice. So it was Mr. Chastain now, was it? Maybe Nick was right. Maybe one could buy respectability. A single photo of him inside the Founders' Club, even though it showed him stretched out on the lobby floor, and Aunt Willy was starting to think he had possibilities.

Zinnia got off the bed and headed for the shower. The phone rang again just as she was about to step into the bathroom. She paused on the threshold to listen.

"Zin? It's me, Leo. I just got back from the hospital. Nick is chomping at the bit. The doctor says she wants to keep him for another day or two for observation, but I have a hunch he's going to check himself out soon. I called to see how you're doing. Guess you're still asleep."

Zinnia hurried across the room and scooped up the phone. "Hi, Leo. I'm awake. Just about to take a shower."

"Feeling better? I was worried about you last night. You looked as if you'd been dragged through a Western Islands jungle after you finished focusing for Nick."

"Nothing like having a younger brother when you want to know the truth. I'm recovering fast. Almost back to normal. How's Nick?"

"Like I said, getting ready to check himself put in spite of the doctor's orders. Clementine was visiting with him when I got there."

"Uh-oh."

"I think they'd had what might be called a heated discussion about you just before I arrived. But they looked like they'd called a truce when I walked into the room."

"A truce?"

"I heard Nick say something about having a plan."

Zinnia winced. "Not a good sign."

"Zin? Level with me. What's happening between you and Chastain?"

"I don't know."

"You're in love with him, aren't you?"

"Yes."

Leo was silent for a moment. "Think he's in love with you?"

Zinnia clutched her robe tightly and sank down into a chair. "The last thing he said to me before the crazy-fog got him was that he loved me. But I'm sure he only said it because he thought he was going insane. He was facing what, for him, was the ultimate horror. I was the last human being he saw before he walked into chaos."

"In other words, you think the drama of the situation had a profoundly motivational impact on his decision to declare his love," Leo said dryly. "The final farewell before the great battle, et cetera, et cetera."

"I think we can assume that, yes." Zinnia reached for a tissue to blot the sudden dampness from her eyes. "Perfectly understandable."

"It's also perfectly understandable that he might actually be in love with you."

"I don't fit the profile of the woman he intends to marry. And he's not exactly my ideal mate, either. It's one thing to have an affair with a matrix, but what intelligent woman would marry one?"

There was a short loud pause on the other end of the line. "An affair?"

"That's all it can ever be."

"Do yourself a favor, Zin. Don't make any snap decisions here, okay? You've been through a lot during the past twenty-four hours. Give yourself some time to calm down and regain your sense of balance."

She sniffed into the tissue. "Okay."

"Take care. I'll check back with you later."

"Thanks, Leo." Zinnia put down the phone. For a long time she gazed morosely at the Early Exploration Period seascape on the wall.

After a while she crumpled the tissue, tossed it aside, and got up to take her shower.

She did not hear the phone ring a third time because of the noise of the pulsing water and the closed door. But when she walked out of the bath half an hour later the answering machine was in the midst of recording another call.

"Mm Spring? Newton DeForest here. Say, I did some checking in those old files. The ones I have stored down in the family crypt. I was surprised to find that I did have some information on the financial aspects of the Third Expedition. Not much, but if you would like to take a look at it- "

Zinnia snatched up the receiver. "Hello? Professor DeForest? Hang on." She punched buttons madly until the answering machine clicked off. "Sorry about that. What were you saying?"

"I have a brief note taken from an old interview with a New Portland University clerk here. For some reason, I jotted down the fact that a company by the name of Fire and Ice Pharmaceuticals had expressed an interest in underwriting the Chastain expedition. The firm went out of business years ago, however. Is this the sort of thing you were looking for?"

"Oh, yes. Yes, indeed."

"I may have a few more bits and pieces here somewhere. Not a lot, but you're welcome to what little there is."

Zinnia glanced at the clock. Five-fifteen. "Would you mind very much if I pick it up this evening?"

"I'll be waiting for you, Miss Spring. If I don't answer the door, come on around the back. I'll be in the garden. I like to use these long summer days to get in a little extra pruning. My dear little blood-creepers grow so quickly."