Beneath the Skin (Empire of the Sky 5)

Beneath the Skin (Empire of the Sky 5)
Mikala Ash
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Copyright ©2024 Mikala Ash

Selena Whiteheart

1867 -- A Vixen in the Mist

I am a duplicitous witch.

Like Janus, the mythological god of beginnings and endings, I present different faces to the world. I began as Marjorie Fletcher, a naïve country virgin murdered for my body by hideous goblins. My homeless soul found refuge in the mind of Cressida Troy, with whom I fell in love. Inevitably I also lost my heart to her fiancé, Jacob McCleary, and I experienced lovemaking for the first time through Cressida. Now, as Selena Whiteheart, human agent of Mon Ilson, the goblin king and self-styled Emperor of Space, and owner of the empire’s greatest airborne gambling and bawdy house, I love the handsome and brave Captain Kit Colby.

I stood at my fireplace staring at the likenesses of Jacob and Kit inside a gold locket. I’d drawn both myself, and think I captured their essential differences rather well. Jacob, the former schoolteacher, whose intelligent gaze signified his thoughtful and considerate nature both in and out of bed, had given me my first experience of lovemaking, albeit vicariously. He was now estranged from Cressida Troy after the murder of Fleur Cumberland, which I had orchestrated. Kit, on the other hand, was a lusty warrior, a decorated hero of the savage air war against Prussia and the Hungarian Empire. As befitting his martial nature, Kit was both forceful and deliberate in his lovemaking.

I was lost for a few moments in a warm memory of passionate kisses, entwined tongues, probing fingers and hard, thrusting cocks before a wave of fear coursed through me. Tears threatened to flow as I traced their images.

I was not alone in my office. I was dimly aware of the earnest little man jabbering about an invention of his. I didn’t care about Mr. Frasier. I was immersed in a sea of despair, and the peril my charade placed not just Jacob and Kit in, but me also.

Both Jacob and Kit were captives of Lady Neva Talbot-Rhys, a powerful witch hell-bent on killing Queen Victoria. Lady Neva held the Queen responsible for her lover’s death during England’s devastating military reprisal against Prussia. I understood her wanting revenge. I felt the same about her.

I had to get them back. Lady Neva was a merciless malevolent maniac, capable of wholesale slaughter -- I’d witnessed that firsthand. My heart chilled at the thought of what horrors Jacob and Kit were suffering at her evil hands.

I wanted desperately to believe they still lived. Why else would Lady Neva kidnap them but to use them for some nefarious purpose?

Jacob had been sent by Mon Ilson to add weight to his envoy Nancy Lea’s mission to arrange a demonstration of his ultimate weapon. Lady Neva had stumbled upon Jacob during her search for Kit, and being a skilled mind reader, she would have instantly known Jacob’s value. That would have been a surprise to her, no doubt. But she was not one to miss an opportunity to cause the Queen even greater problems. She had intended to kidnap Nancy Lea as well, but fortunately she had escaped. I believed Lady Neva had probably gone to Europe to sell Jacob’s knowledge to one of Britain’s host of enemies. If that was the case, then Mon Ilson’s carefully laid plans could be wrecked and chaos would ensue, resulting in the deaths of millions. Frustratingly, our overseas agents had not detected any sign of Lady Neva. She had disappeared like a vixen in the mist.

I shuddered and took in a ragged breath of despair at what she would do to Kit. Unlike Jacob, who had political value, poor Kit she could torture at her leisure. Kit had become the object of her revenge after thwarting her plan to use the Prince of Wales to kill the Queen.

For the time being, as Selena Whiteheart, I do the bidding of the goblin king, the most powerful witch in history. For the moment our goals aligned. He too wanted Lady Neva found, for her determination to kill Queen Victoria threatened to derail his own plans of conquest.

My service to Mon Ilson requires a significant amount of time and energy, for I must hide my true intentions from him by burying them deep within my consciousness. I hate Mon Ilson. His goblins had murdered me, and then stolen my body from the grave. While I obeyed his commands, I secretly supported his overthrow by Cressida Troy, now his empress, another human with another name: Nil Ilson.

Cressida had saved my soul. Or rather my nascent magical abilities had led me to her, and her mind became my temporary safe haven. Then my magical powers were like a seed, waiting for water and heat. Unwittingly Mon Ilson supplied those himself, for when he read Cressida’s mind, he had detected me and recognised my potential as a servant. Like Pandora he opened the box of magic and let me absorb as much as I could hold.

To regain my body, I had enchanted both Cressida and Mon Ilson into believing they loved each other and convinced her to prove her loyalty to him so he would return my soul to my body. As my puppet, Cressida killed the most powerful human witch, Fleur Cumberland. Mon Ilson repaid me by returning my soul to my body and sending me to Earth to prepare the way for his conquest. I had confessed my perfidy to Cressida, hoping she would work with me to resist him. Cressida married Mon Ilson, and adopted the name Nil Ilson, and the title Empress of Space.

Mon Ilson’s plan to overthrow the British Empire required the co-opting of Queen Victoria. He meant to use the vast infrastructure of her empire to take over the world with hardly a fight. So, for the time being I’d be his enthusiastic cat’s paw until I could help Nil Ilson, Cressida, defeat him.

But first I have to find Jacob and Kit.

“Ahem. Er. Miss Whiteheart?”

The clearing throat and hesitant voice reminded me of Mr. Frasier’s presence. I closed the locket and turned to face the untidily dressed, red-haired little man. Before I’d lost myself in my own thoughts, he’d been enthusiastically engaged in a technical monologue about his new invention.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, returning the locket to my bosom. “Pray continue.”

He cleared his throat again, and after taking a deep breath began to list the benefits of his new gadget, a tamperproof roulette wheel.

“It will kill any accusation of fraudulence,” he had begun.

As if the honesty of my tables had ever been in question. The idea that I would be accused of cheating was insulting, but I continued to listen with feigned interest.

His name was David Frasier, a middle-aged inventor and factory owner from Edinburgh. He’d been introduced to me by Special Branch agent and my latest lover, Harry Kincaid. After making the introductions, Harry had excused himself, saying he had to send a message to his club.

That was a lie. The murky shade of Harry’s aura had given him away. I knew he was listening at the door. He’d asked me to be nice to Frasier as he was trying to recruit him as a spy. He visited the continent often, doing business with some prominent politicians and industrialists. The introduction to me would put Frasier in Harry’s debt.

It was for that reason I resigned myself to listen without objection to the fellow’s insulting proposition.

Frasier stopped in mid-sentence. He had been enthusiastically describing his contrivance, something to do with building a miniature mechanical computational device invented by Charles Babbage, when his face had become flushed, and beads of perspiration formed on his forehead. His hands started to tremble, and his final words ended in a slur. His aura had, in an instant, transformed into a seething pulsating muddy blob, the colours bubbling through each other in a roiling mass. A moment before it had been quite normal, nervous perhaps, and very excited, but that is not unusual in men meeting me for the first time, and after all, he was trying to make a sale. The transition had been so abrupt, so unnatural, I reached out to his mind to see the cause. I sensed despair, and most of all, mind-numbing fear. Hardly a coherent thought peeked through. The one that did was unmistakable.

“Mr. Frasier, don’t do this!” I put a suppression spell over him. “Whatever it is, I can help.”