Azagoth: A Demonica Novella (1001 Dark Nights) Read Online Free

process, and their empty eyes haunted her to this day.
    As if having her ability taken away wasn’t bad enough, she’d then be stuck doing menial tasks for the rest of her life...but on the bright side, maybe she’d be so lobotomized from the time-travelectomy that she wouldn’t care.
    And didn’t that sound like a wonderful life?
    Her other choice was to become the mate of a depraved angel, a male who was the keeper of demon souls. A male who had volunteered to be booted from Heaven...or, if the rumors were true, he’d not so much “volunteered” as been volunteered.
    Sort of like what was happening to her right now.
    Except that after she mated the Grim Freaking Reaper, she’d be stuck in his realm, which, by all accounts, was a shadowy, dreary place that resembled Athens—if Athens was drenched in darkness, overrun by creepy demon things, and had been decorated via an unholy alliance between Guillermo del Toro and Anne Rice.
    Really, though, there was a clear winner here. Between the choices of suck and suckier, suck won out.
    Opening her eyes, she gave in to the inevitable. “I’ll go to Sheoul-gra,” she muttered. At least she had thirty days to change her mind once she got there.
    “I’m happy to hear that. You leave immediately.” Clapping his hand on her shoulder, he leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. “Now, if one were to somehow get out of Azagoth’s realm with his chronoglass within that thirty days, one’s past transgressions might be forgiven. Especially if one were also to destroy the spying stone we believe he’s using to spy on us.”
    She nearly tripped over her own feet. He was giving her a way out of this crappy deal?
    Raphael stepped back and finished his nectar. “Oh,” he said, as he tossed the empty cup to the floor and strode toward the exit, “and good luck. Azagoth is an asshole.”
     

Chapter Three
    Lilliana’s skin crawled as she took in the massive palace before her. True to her intel and research, the building, and all those surrounding it, were fashioned after ancient Greek structures. Great pillars rose up from the ground to support walls that went on forever. But unlike the bone-white framework that typified Greek construction, everything here was blackened, as if polluted by centuries of smoke buildup. She wondered what would happen if she scraped her fingernail down a wall.
    Everything here felt...wrong. Even the air buzzed with a low-level sinister energy, as if she were standing next to a leaking, demonic nuclear power plant. Instinctively, she reached for her angelic power, but it was as if she struck a barrier. She could feel her power inside her, but it was trapped somehow, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t reach it.
    Raphael had warned her that her powers would be all but useless here, but she’d hoped that somehow he was wrong.
    Not so much.
    Shuddering, she inhaled the air that stank of decay and filth, and climbed the seemingly endless steps to a landing that was as sprawling as a football field. The doors before her, large enough to allow a pair of elephants inside, opened up as if by magic.
    No one was standing at the threshold to greet her. She hadn’t been sure what to expect, but silence and a warehouse-sized room filled with gruesome artwork and fountains that ran with blood wasn’t it.
    Lilliana walked inside, her pristine white gown dragging on the polished obsidian floor. She hated the stupid dress, but it was what Raphael had insisted she wear, as if she were some sort of child bride being offered up to a sleazeball who’d paid for her.
    Which probably wasn’t far from the truth.
    At the far side of the room, a lone figure appeared through another set of double doors. Male. Tall. Blond. Handsome. Evil.
    Fallen angel.
    He gestured for her to approach, and although she’d been conditioned since birth to despise fallen angels, she obeyed. What choice did she have, after all?
    “I am Zhubaal,” he said,