Azagoth: A Demonica Novella (1001 Dark Nights) by Larissa Ione Read Free Book Online

unremarkable, record of service until recently, when she was punished for stealing items from the past. Shortly after that, she went AWOL and didn’t show up for work for months. No one could find her until she broke out of the shrowd in medieval England.”
    Azagoth was rarely taken by surprise, but that news did it. When angels traveled to the past, they did so within an impenetrable bubble known as a shrowd . The shrowd rendered them invisible and limited their ability to interact with the residents of the era. One of the most important and heavily enforced rules for time travelers was that they never leave the shrowd .
    Maybe her infraction was what got her sent here. But why had she done it in the first place? Had she been running from something? He knew it was possible for angels to leave the shrowd in order to reside—or hide—in the past, but he didn’t know how they avoided getting caught. Apparently, Lilliana didn’t know either.
    “Why did she break out of the shrowd ?”
    “No idea.”
    Disappointing. “What about lovers?” he asked. “Does she have any? Did she have to leave a male in Heaven to come here?”
    Please say no. Not that he personally gave a hellrat’s ass, but if he was going to have to put up with a crying, broken-hearted female for all eternity, he’d like a heads up and a lot more rum.
    Jim Bob shrugged. “If so, she kept it quiet. The only relationship I found was with a male named Hutriel, but that ended decades ago.”
    Excellent. Azagoth stared into the fire as he contemplated everything he’d learned. When he looked back over at Jim Bob, the angel stopped pacing. “You look puzzled,” Jim Bob mused.
    “I’m just wondering why she wasn’t destroyed for breaking out of the shrowd . Was mating me her punishment?”
    “Perhaps.”
    How not helpful. Azagoth ground his molars in frustration. “Can you at least tell me if her ability to time travel was removed before she was sent here?”
    “It was not.”
    Well, wasn’t this all unexpected. He recalled how Lilliana had seemed so amazed by his chronoglass , so clueless about what it was and what he did with it, all the while knowing she possessed an ability that could activate the device.
    It seemed as if his new mate had been keeping important information from him. Time to find out why.
    And, perhaps, remind her that he dealt in death. Not forgiveness.
     

Chapter Five
    Lilliana had no idea how she was going to get that giant chronoglass out of Sheoul-gra. For a few minutes after Azagoth left her alone, she’d tried to lift the thing, but it soon became clear that without her powers, she was going to have to drag it out. Which was going to take time and was going to make a lot of noise.
    She’d have to plan this heist well.
    She always thought best when she was walking, so she’d gone out to explore the buildings Azagoth had said were empty.
    And they were...of people. Hellrats and other strange little demonic critters scurried around, and the pulsing, maggoty-pale vines had climbed walls and penetrated windows and doorways. As she wandered through structure after structure, she found evidence of what must have, at one point, been a bustling community.
    One entire building had been dedicated to living quarters complete with private bedrooms. In another building, she found several long-empty community baths. There was even a huge hall filled with long tables and chairs. Wooden and stone food trenchers still sat at some of the seats, as if waiting to be filled.
    Who had lived here? And why had they left?
    It was all so eerie, and that was before she reached the Roman-style colosseum, its sandy basin littered with demon bones. Ancient weapons, none newer than about two hundred years old, hung from racks on the walls.
    The soft thud of footsteps echoed through the structure, and it took all her years of training not to make a run for the nearest scythe. Panic in a strange place never ended in anything but death. In a