The Book of Doom

HE DEMON CONTINUED to scream for just a few seconds, then stopped almost as suddenly as he had started.

“What in here’s name do you think you’re playing at?” he demanded, clutching at his bare chest. He nudged the door closed behind him and shot Angelo a dirty look. “You nearly gave me a sodding heart attack!”

Angelo glanced at Zac, then back to the figure in the doorway. “Um... sorry.”

The demon was short and squat with a big nose and pointed ears. His skin was a burned shade of brown, with red nodules growing from his cheeks like tiny mushrooms. He wore a very small, very tight pair of satin gold pants, and it was only as he glided slowly forward that Zac realised he was also wearing roller skates.

“So you should be. Running about like that, scaring people. It shouldn’t be allowed.” He wiped his nose on the back of his arm, and eyed the tattered remains of Angelo’s clothes. “Here, you ain’t escaped, have you?”

Angelo quickly shook his head.

“You sure?” He looked both boys up and down. “Where you come from, then, if you ain’t escap— Ulk!”

The tip of a dart dug into the demon’s flesh where his neck met his shoulder. A long green tongue unfurled from within his mouth and his eyes rolled backwards in their sockets. His feet slid out from beneath him and his forehead hit the carpet with a slightly hollow thunk.

Angelo stared accusingly at Zac’s gun. “Do you have to shoot everyone we meet?”

“Well, maybe if you listened to me and didn’t go running off, I wouldn’t have to! In future, do as you’re told, OK?”

“Why, what will you do? Shoot me too?”

Zac pushed past him. “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he mumbled, stepping up to the slumbering demon. They both peered down at him.

“Maybe you should steal his clothes,” Angelo suggested. “You know, so you’re in disguise. That’s what Indiana Jones does.”

Zac’s eyes went to the gold satin hot pants and skates. “Yeah. I think I’ll leave it,” he said. He turned to Angelo. “I think you should wait here.”

“What? Why?” asked Angelo.

“Because I don’t know what else we’ll meet, and I’ve only got one dart left.”

Angelo counted on his fingers. “You’ve got six left. You’ve only shot two and Argus gave you eight.”

“I dropped some,” Zac replied, thinking fast.

“That was clumsy, Mr Butterfingers,” Angelo scolded. “It doesn’t matter, I’m coming. Gabriel said I had to stick close to you, so that’s what I’m going to do. Besides,” he added, “I feel safer with you around.”

“I wish I could say the same,” Zac said. He sighed. “Fine. But remember, the lower we get, the more dangerous it becomes. Keep calm. The last thing I need is for you to freak out on me.”

Angelo gave a little laugh. “I don’t freak out.”

“Yes, you do,” Zac replied. “You just never remember afterwards.” He stepped on to the escalator and began the descent to the circle below. “Now, come on. Stay close and stay quiet.”

The second circle of Hell was virtually identical to the first. The carpet was the same. It had the same frosted-glass barrier round the inside curve. The only difference was the doors.

The doors on the floor above had been glossy white. The ones on the second circle were a sort of creamy brown colour. Aside from that small difference, and the fact that there was no unconscious demon lying on this floor, the circles were virtually indistinguishable.

They moved quietly, keeping low so the glass would hide them from anything that might emerge from one of the doors on the opposite side of the circle. Zac slipped the gun back inside his jacket. He wanted to keep the last dart until he really needed it. If something stepped out of one of the doors ahead of them, he’d have to find some other way of dealing with it.

Fortunately, nothing did. They made it to the second escalator in under a minute and let it carry them down to the floor below. The third circle looked just as empty as the others. The doors were a coppery shade of brown and the muzak sounded just a little louder and more grating, but otherwise it was nothing they hadn’t seen before.

“See,” Angelo grinned. “Easy. I told you you worry too much.”

As if it had been standing in the wings waiting for its cue, an alarm began to ring. It was an old-fashioned clang-clang-clang, like someone was repeatedly striking a bell. The sound drowned out the muzak and carried all the way from the first circle to the last.

On every floor, doors began to open. Demons and monsters and things Zac couldn’t describe stepped into the corridors, grumbling in annoyance or looking around in confusion. It was only a matter of time before—

“Oi!” shouted someone by the door on their left. “You two. What you playing at?”

“Run!” Zac cried, grabbing Angelo and powering along the corridor. They clattered past another door, then the next one along swung open and something large and heavily armoured ducked out and blocked the way.

“What do we do?” Angelo yelped. “What do we do?”

Zac turned and grabbed for the handle of the door they had passed. “In here,” he said, throwing open the door and shoving Angelo inside.

“No, no, what are you doing?” the boy squealed, but Zac leaped in behind him and pushed the door closed with a slam. He jammed his foot and his shoulder against it, trying to stop the demons from coming in. But no demons came. The door did not move.

Still keeping his weight against the wood, Zac turned and looked into the room they had entered. It was dark in there. The only light came from an illuminated EXIT sign directly above his head. It threw a weak glow down the door, and in a faint puddle round his feet.

“Angelo,” he whispered into the darkness. “You OK? Where are you?”

The only reply was a soft hissing, like static on a radio or rain falling on a window far overhead.

“Angelo?” he said again. “Stop mucking about. Where are you?”

The darkness kept hissing, but from Angelo there came no reply.

Zac dragged his foot a few centimetres from the door, ready to jam it again if anything tried to come through. Nothing did. Whatever the demons were doing, they weren’t trying to get into this room.

“Come on, Angelo,” he said, raising his voice a little. “I swear if you’re messing around I’ll kill you myself.”

He opened the backpack and pulled out a slim black torch Argus had given him. It was waterproof, but not completely Styx proof, it seemed. The glow flickered erratically when he switched it on, sending shadows scurrying spider-like up and down the walls.

He turned the light towards the nearest wall. It blinked and flashed like the Morse Code of a madman, but the light was enough to let Zac see the wallpaper. In that first glimpse, he’d thought he had recognised it. Now he knew he did, and it made the blood become ice in his veins.

It was his wallpaper. Or rather, it had been. It was the wallpaper from the flat he and his granddad had lived in years ago, before Zac had scraped enough money together for them to rent a bigger place. The walls here were all mottled with damp and riddled with rot.

Around him, the hissing grew just a little louder. Zac turned away from the wallpaper, pointed the flickering torch, and stepped onwards into the dark.

“Zac? Zac? Where are you?”

Even to himself, Angelo’s voice sounded shrill and pathetic, but he was lost and afraid and he couldn’t care less what he sounded like right at that moment.

He had been shoved through into a room that was in near darkness. Then the closing door had cut off all light from the outside and the blackness had swallowed him whole. He had been trying to find the door and Zac ever since, but whichever direction he reached out in he found nothing.

Eventually, when he realised he was completely, hopelessly lost, Angelo sat down on the carpeted floor and crossed his legs. There was only one thing for it.

He screwed his eyes tight shut, as he had been taught to do centuries ago. He gripped his knees and clenched his jaw and concentrated with everything he had. His face turned a worrying shade of purple in the darkness.

“Hng. Come... on...” he hissed through his gritted teeth. It had been a long time since he had attempted this, and even longer since he’d succeeded. But it had to work now. It had to. “Do... or do not. There is... no... try! Hnnnng.”

A small circle of light fizzled into existence above his head, like a mini version of the neon O in the Eyedol sign. Angelo’s body sagged as he let out a shaky breath. He reached up and touched the halo. It hummed faintly beneath his fingers. His hand moved down to his temple. He rubbed it gently and groaned as he stood up.

“I’m going to pay for that in the morning,” he mumbled, but at least he could now see, even if it was only a few metres in every direction. What he saw was nothing. Nothing but carpet on all sides.

Angelo pointed north, south, east and west. “Eenie, meenie, minie, mo,” he whispered, then he picked a direction and he began to walk.

The beam of the torch fizzled and flashed. Zac gave the lens a tap and the light settled for a few seconds. Not that he really needed it. His feet remembered the way all by themselves.

His bedroom led out into a narrow hallway – bathroom to the right, everything else to the left. Six or seven shuffled steps took him to the other end of the hall. Four doors stood there. One led out on to the communal stairway. Another was a cupboard crammed full of toys and other old junk.

The door directly on his right led through to the living room, which in turn connected with the kitchen. The door just ahead and on his left had been his granddad’s bedroom. He shone the flickering torch at that door and saw the handle was still hanging limp and broken, just as it had been when they’d moved out.

The hissing of the static was louder on his right, and so that was where he decided to go. Gripping the torch handle tightly, Zac pushed open the living-room door and stepped through into a nightmare.





NGELO STOPPED BEFORE a familiar white door. It was his door. The one that led into his bedroom. That much was clear. What wasn’t clear, was why it was in Hell.

But it was his door, and in Angelo’s mind that made it safe. Or safer than doors that weren’t his, at least. With the glow of his halo lighting the way, he pushed the door open and stepped into his bedroom.

A demon waited for him inside. Angelo knew it was a demon because he was dressed like a demon. He wore what looked like red pyjamas and a red cape and he held a trident – also red – in one clawed hand. He had a tail with an arrowhead tip. It drooped down and touched the floor behind him. His horns were small, his stomach wasn’t. The bottom of it bulged out beneath the pyjama top and hung hairy and bare over the waistband of the pyjama trousers.

The demon wasn’t much taller than Angelo. What was left of his thinning hair was scraped across a head that looked to be around twenty per cent larger than it should have been. All in all, he would’ve just looked like a slightly odd, middle-aged man in an ill-fitting Halloween costume, had it not been for the tiny flickering flames at the centre of each of his eyes.

“There you are,” said the demon, more cheerfully than might have been expected. “At last. I’ve been wondering when you’d turn up.”

Angelo screamed and turned to run, but there was no door behind him, just a blank bedroom wall. Pressing his back against the wallpaper, Angelo faced the demon.

“Wh-who are you?” he gulped. “What are you doing in my bedroom?”

The demon glanced back briefly over his shoulder. “What, me?”

“Yes, you!”

“Right, yes,” said the demon. “Sorry.” He drew himself up to his full, unimpressive height. “I am Murmur, Earl of Hell, and I have been tasked with—”

“My poster!” Angelo cried sharply. He stared in horror at his poster of Jesus. A moustache and beard had been drawn on to Christ in black marker pen. “Who did that? Was that you?”

Murmur’s eyes went down to the pen in his hand, then back to Angelo. He quickly hid the hand behind his back. “Uh... nope.”

“It was so! You drew a beard on Jesus.”

Murmur looked mildly embarrassed. “OK, yes. Well, I’m a demon. I had to do something to it. What would everyone else say if I’d passed up a chance like that?”

Angelo shook his head in dismay. “But, I mean... why did you draw a beard? He’s already got a beard.”

“I know, I know,” Murmur said. “Well, I mean, I didn’t want to ruin it, did I?”

“Didn’t you?” asked Angelo, surprised at that.

“Course not,” said Murmur. He leaned in closer, forcing Angelo to press himself harder against the wall. “Between you and me, I think it’s one of his better ones. He’s usually all crucified and that. Nice to see him cracking a smile for once.”

Angelo looked the demon up and down. So far, he didn’t appear very demonic.

“What do you want? Why are you here?”

“What? Oh, yeah, right,” Murmur said. He raised a clawed finger, then began patting across the front of his pyjama top. “One sec. I know it’s here somewhere. Aha, here we go.”

There was a rustle of paper as the demon unfolded a yellowing sheet of A4. He gave a shy smile as he positioned a pair of reading glasses on the bridge of his nose.

“Here we are now,” he said, leaning his head back and squinting down at the paper. “By order of Lucifuge Rofocale, Grand Governor of Hell, upon encountering an intruder I am instructed to tear their flesh asunder and rip open the very...” Murmur’s voice trailed off. His lips continued to move as he read in near silence. “Disembowl,” he mumbled with a frown. “Feast on...”

The demon’s puffy red skin paled a shade. He brought the page closer to his face, as if unable to believe what he was reading. “That’s a bit much,” he concluded, and he quietly refolded the paper and slipped it back into his inside pocket. Next he took off his glasses. The arms gave a click as he folded them together. “No, don’t think we’ll bother with that,” he said. “Not really got the stomach for it these days.”

Angelo was still pressing himself flat against the wall. His legs were beginning to ache from the effort. “So can I go, then?” he asked.

Murmur gave a long, sad sigh. “No, ’fraid not.” He glanced up and around, as if checking they were alone. “I don’t have much time. I’m not really supposed to be here, but, well, there’s something I want to talk to you about.” He lowered himself down on to the end of Angelo’s bed, idly picked up a comic from the bedside table and flicked quickly through it. He put the comic back down, then quietly cleared his throat.

“Tell me, Angelo,” the demon said. “Gabriel and Michael. What did they tell you about your father?”

“What’s it got to do with you?” Angelo asked.

“Please,” said Murmur. “What did they tell you?”

Angelo faltered. “That he was human. They told me he was human.”

Murmur stood up. He nodded, as if a lifetime of suspicions had just been confirmed. “Yeah, I thought they might have said that. But, well, you see, they were lying, Angelo,” Murmur said. He opened his arms wide and smiled in a way that looked like an apology. “I am your father.”

Zac had been right. The hissing was static from a radio. Specifically, it was static from his granddad’s radio, which sat on the coffee table in the centre of the small living room.

In the flickering glow of the torch, he saw his granddad’s armchair. It faced away from the door, as it had always done, angled so the old man could sit and look out of the window at the world beyond. But the window was gone. In its place was a rectangle of grey bricks, the mortar between them crumbling away.

The light dimmed, but before it did, Zac caught sight of the top of his granddad’s head, visible just above the chair’s high back.

“Granddad?” he said, but the word came out as a croak. “Granddad, it’s me. It’s Zac.”

The old man in the chair did not move. Zac shook some life back into the torch and stepped further into the room.

“This is a trick,” he reminded himself. “This is not real.”

And yet it was so real. Almost too real, as if everything that had happened since the days in this flat were a dream from which he was only now waking, like they’d never moved to the new house, never escaped this grotty little place.

The goldfish bowl sat on the table beside the radio. The water was grey and murky, with green scum on the glass. The fish was no longer zipping through the water, but floating limply near the top instead.

The dead fish made horrible sense. Of course it was dead. It had to be dead. In the other world, the fish had been alive for Zac’s entire life, and that was impossible. Unless the other world was a dream, and this was the real one.

Zac saw his granddad’s hand, withered and frail on the arm of the chair. His fingers were hooked round his little blue and green stress ball. Zac stared at the globe pattern for a moment. He felt a tingle at the back of his head, as if there was something significant about the ball that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Before he could dwell on it too much, the ball slipped from the old man’s fingers. It bounced once on the threadbare carpet, then rolled to a stop by the table. Zac followed it with the torch and carried on staring at it for a few moments, as if the answer to everything was written across its surface, if only he could see it.

He took another step forward and his granddad was revealed in profile. The old man looked even more ancient than usual. His grey hair had come out in clumps, leaving only a few wispy remnants behind. His skin seemed too tight for his face, but puckered and wrinkled at the same time, like an overripe fruit left out to rot.

Phillip’s eyes were closed. His chest was still. Zac didn’t expect any answer when he whispered, “Granddad?” into the dark. But he got one.

“Zac?”

The old man’s voice was dry and brittle. It came out without help from his parched, unmoving lips.

“I’m here, Granddad,” Zac said, but he hung back, unable to go to the old man’s side. This isn’t real, he told himself, but the voice in his head had lost all its conviction.

Phillip’s eyes opened, revealing pupils that had turned milky and white. They gazed unseeing at the ceiling. “Why did you leave me, Zac?” he croaked. “Why did you leave me on my own?”

“I didn’t,” Zac said. “I didn’t leave you. I mean... not like this.”

“I waited for you, Zac. Why didn’t you come back?”

Zac knelt by his grandfather’s chair. The old man’s skin felt like dry leaves as Zac took hold of his hand. “I did come back, Granddad. I am back. I’m here.”

Phillip’s head nodded slowly. His mouth flapped open and closed. “Stay with me, Zac,” he wheezed. “Please don’t leave me again.”

“I won’t leave you again,” Zac promised. “I’ll stay with you.”

“For ever.”

Zac tightened his grip on the withered hand. “For ever.”

Angelo stared at the chubby demon in the ill-fitting clothes. He seemed to wilt beneath the boy’s gaze.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” Murmur asked. “I just told you I’m your father.”

“No, you’re not,” Angelo said. “That’s not true.”

Murmur stood up. Angelo almost became one with the wall behind him. “Search your feelings,” urged the demon. “You know it to be true.”

Angelo blinked. “That’s from Star Wars. You nicked that from Star Wars.”

Embarrassment darted across Murmur’s face. “What? Um. Yes, well—”

“The Empire Strikes Back. The bit at the end.”

“Yes, well, I wasn’t sure how to break it to you. It’s big news, let’s face it. I thought I’d better do some research first.”

Angelo stared in disbelief. “And you thought Darth Vader was a good role model to follow? Darth Vader? What’s next? Chopping my hand off with a light sabre?”

“I haven’t got a light sabre,” Murmur said, shaking his head. He smiled at the thought. “Although, wouldn’t that be brilliant?”

“It would be brilliant,” Angelo conceded. “But can we get back to the point? You’re not my father.”

“Search your feelings, Angelo,” said Murmur. “Oh, wait, I’ve done that bit, haven’t I?”

“Yes.”

Murmur nodded. “Right. Sorry, I’m not making a very good...”

He sat back down on the bed and words began to tumble out of him. “We were in Limbo. You know, on one of them team-building weekends? Archery, abseiling, goat sacrifice. The usual. I was sent to the Junk Room – that’s where they keep all the equipment.”

The demon’s voice trailed off into a wistful smile. “And that’s where I met Laila. That’s where I met your mother.” He gave himself a shake, snapping himself back to the present. “Turned out Heaven was having its own team-building thing, and she’d been sent to the Junk Room too. I was picking up some chainsaws; she was bringing back a canoe.”

“A canoe?”

“Yes. Don’t know why. No water in Limbo, but it didn’t occur to me to ask. I was too busy staring. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. We started to talk, really hit it off, despite everything. We arranged to meet again later that night. One thing led to another and, well, I’m sure you can figure out what happened next.”

Angelo’s brow furrowed. “What happened next?”

Murmur’s cheeks reddened. “You know.”

“No, I don’t,” said Angelo blankly. “What happened next?”

The demon twitched nervously. “We, uh, well, we... had a baby.”

Angelo drew in a sharp breath. “Me.”

“You.”

“No, that’s not...” Angelo began, but he ran out of steam there. He stared at the demon. “Are you telling the truth?” he asked. “Are you really my dad?”

Murmur nodded. “’Fraid so,” he said.

“No, but that means...” Angelo felt his stomach twist as the realisation hit him. “No, but that means I’m half... half...”

“Demon.”

“That means I’m half demon!”

Murmur nodded again. “You are.”

“But, but I don’t want to be a demon,” said Angelo. His jaw tightened as he fought against tears. “Demons are evil.”

“Mostly,” the demon conceded. “But you’re only half demon. You don’t have to be evil. You can be anything you like.”

They looked at each other in silence for a long time. It was Angelo who eventually broke it.

“So what now?” he asked.

Murmur shrugged. “Wrestling?”

“Wrestling?”

“That’s a suitable father-son activity, isn’t it? Or fishing? You can catch some big ones in the Styx. Unless they catch you first. Or we could build a tree house? I don’t know. I’ve never done this before. You’re the only son I’ve got.”

A low creak made the room vibrate. Murmur’s eyes went wide. “No, no, no,” he said. “Not yet. Not already.”

“What is it?”

“They’ve found us.”

“Who’s found us?”

“Them. Haures and the others. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I wasn’t supposed to tell you any of this, but, well... I had to see you,” he swallowed, “son. I had to see you just once.”

The creak became a rumble. Half a dozen of Angelo’s books vibrated off his shelves. “What’s happening?” Angelo asked.

Murmur’s voice was a whisper. “They’re coming. Shout for your friend.”

“What?”

“Your friend. Shout for him. You’re safer together than apart.”

Murmur gestured towards the wall. The door was suddenly back where it had always been. Angelo reached for the handle, but a sharp cry from Murmur stopped him.

“No! Don’t go out there, you’ll get lost. Call for your friend.” He grabbed Angelo by the upper arms. There was fear flickering behind the flames in the demon’s eyes. “You hear me, son? Call your friend. I know I’ve got no right to say this, but you have to trust me. Call your friend. Now!”

Angelo hesitated, then he turned to the door, opened his mouth and shouted Zac’s name as loudly as he could.

Zac turned towards the kitchen door. “What was that?”

In the chair, Phillip shook his head. “Nothing. Ignore it. Stay here with me.”

Another shout came, even more panicked than the last.

“Angelo?”

Zac tried to stand, but his grandfather’s hand clamped his like a vice. “Stay here with me,” he said, and his wheeze became a menacing growl. “Don’t leave me again.”

Angelo was screaming, calling out for help.

“I have to check on him,” Zac said. “I’ll be back in one minute, OK?”

“Don’t you dare leave me,” Phillip warned, and now the growl had become a roar. Zac looked down at the chair, and panic made him yank his hand away. The person sitting there was no longer his grandfather. It had his grandfather’s skin, but things wriggled inside it as if trying to force their way free. The withered hand grabbed for his again, but Zac was backing away, making for the door.

Phillip’s mouth opened, and Zac saw poisonous shapes twisting there at the back of the throat. “Stay... with... me,” a chorus of voices insisted. “I’m... your... grandfather.”

“No,” said Zac. “You’re not.”

The kitchen door was blocked from the other side. That didn’t stop him. He powered a kick at it, driving his foot against the wood. There was a splintering crack and the door flew wide open.

He saw Angelo standing in what looked like his bedroom. A demon lurked right behind him. In one fluid movement Zac reached into his jacket. There was a thwip as he used up the last tranquilliser dart and the demon slumped down on to the floor. Angelo turned as he fell, and stood staring at him until Zac spoke.

“You all right?”

Angelo shook his head. “Not really,” he said. “That was my dad.”

“Oh. Right. Well, um, sorry I shot your dad.”

“My dad’s a demon,” said Angelo, his voice trembling.

Zac looked down at the slumbering Murmur. “God, yeah. So he is. Who knew?”

“He got parenting tips from Darth Vader,” Angelo continued. He turned to Zac, and Zac realised the boy was smiling. “How great is that? My dad likes Star Wars. He’s just like me.”

Angelo spotted the writhing shape in the doorway. It was squirming on the ground, black goo dripping from its nose and mouth.

“Ugh, what’s that?” he asked, recoiling in horror.

“No one important,” Zac said, pushing the door closed. There was a loud hammering on it almost at once. Angelo yelped in panic.

“Zaaaaaaac,” wheezed a voice on the other side of the wood. “Heeeelp meeee, Zaaaaaaac.”

Another low drone made the room shake. “What was that?” Zac asked.

“My dad said more demons are coming,” Angelo said. “What do we do?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Zac admitted.

“Pleeeease, Zaaaaaac. Heeeelp meeee.”

“Oh, cut it out,” Zac said, thudding a fist against the door.

“Pray!” Angelo suggested. “We should pray!”

“I told you, I’m not praying.” He grabbed the handle of the door and held it closed. He looked back over at Angelo, and that was when he saw the cat.

It appeared to step from thin air right beside Angelo. It looked lazily up at them both in turn. The animal’s fur was ragged and filthy and coming out in clumps. It was the size of a kitten, but looked to have lived through at least eight of its nine lives.

Zac and Angelo watched the cat in silence as it sat down on the floor, wagged its tail and said, “Woof.”





“E’S FOUND ’EM,” bellowed a voice from within the cupboard. “Toxie’s found ’em. They’re in here.”

The bedroom around them went fuzzy at the edges. Zac felt the door handle melt away in his grip as the room became wispy like smoke. Far overhead a series of powerful lights flickered on, revealing what looked like a vast empty warehouse.

Where the poster of Jesus had been there now stood demons of assorted sizes. They ranged from around twenty centimetres in height to well over two metres, and they all carried ropes or nets or baseball bats with nails through them. The smallest demon seemed to be the brains of the outfit.

“There they is,” he sneered, hopping up and down on spindly, frog-like legs. “There they is!” He scratched the cat behind the ears. It involved standing on tiptoes. “Who’s a good Hellhound? Who’s a good Hellhound? Toxie is. Toxie is!”

“Hellhound?” said Zac. “That thing’s supposed to be a dog?”

The little frog-demon ignored the question. “Thought you could give us the slip, eh?” he asked, glaring tiny daggers at Zac and Angelo. “You’re lucky we found you when we did or things could’ve gotten right messy.”

The monstrous group parted as another figure stepped from thin air directly behind them. This demon was the largest of the lot. There was something different about him too. Something about the way he stood that said he was someone you really ought to be paying attention to. The smallest demon fired off a perfect salute as the newcomer stepped over him.

The stench of death and burning flesh caught at the back of Zac’s throat as the demon stopped in front of him. “This is them?” the monster demanded.

“Yeah, that’s them, Mr Haures, sir,” nodded the little one. “Told you we’d catch ’em. It was Toxie here what did—”

Haures clicked his scaly fingers. There was a brief scream and the little demon vanished in a plume of angry flame. “Shut up,” said Haures absent-mindedly.

The big demon looked down at Murmur asleep on the floor, and shook his head in annoyance. He turned his gaze on both boys. His lips drew back into an approximation of a smile. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he told them. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long, long time.”

“Wh-who are you?” Angelo stammered.

Haures fixed him with a fiery stare. He said nothing for a while, as if contemplating the question.

“You will find out soon enough,” he said at last. Turning away, he motioned to the larger members of the demon group. “Take them down to ten,” he instructed. “Carefully. Anyone harms them and they will answer to me.”

The other demons nodded hastily, bowing low as Haures swept past. There was a collective sigh of relief from them as he vanished into thin air. A moment later, he reappeared again.

“Oh, and notify the Master,” he ordered. “He will want to see these insects for himself.”

“Watch who you’re calling an insect,” Zac warned.

With a twitch of irritation, Haures snapped his fingers again. Something went pop inside Zac’s head. He felt his ankles wobble, then his knees buckle. He probably felt the floor as he crashed down on to it, but he couldn’t say for sure. Zac’s eyes closed. The voices of the demons and the screams of Angelo sounded far away along a tunnel.

The last thing he heard before he surrendered to unconsciousness was the mad barking of the flea-bitten cat.

A jet of water woke him up. It was warm and smelled unpleasantly sour. He really hoped that it was water, but he had his doubts.

Spluttering, he looked up. A hunchbacked creature with too few eyes and too many teeth leered as it squirted murky yellow liquid at him from a plastic bottle. “He’s awake,” the demon said, in a surprisingly feminine voice.

She gave the bottle another squeeze, spraying Zac with more of the copper-coloured liquid. He tried to make a grab for it, but discovered his hands were shackled to a steel frame above his head. He tried to move his feet, but thick chains held those in place too.

He heard a whimper from his right and saw that Angelo was chained up exactly as he was. The boy’s eyes were closed, but his head was moving, as if he were just waking up too.

Zac quickly glanced around the room, trying to get his bearings, but he was somewhere he had never seen before. The room was a stark, clinical white, with stainless steel worktops lining the walls on every side. There were no windows that he could see, and no doors, either. No way in or out.

A chair stood in the middle of the room, like something from a dentist’s surgery – reclined fully back with a movable spotlight mounted above it. Zac wished he hadn’t spotted the straps and buckles on the armrests, but they were the first things he had seen.

“Thank you, Eliza, that will be all.”

A man just a little taller than Angelo stepped into view. He appeared human, more or less, with only two sawn-off stumps of what must once have been horns to suggest his true nature.

The man looked to be in his late sixties, with thinning grey hair and deep-set wrinkles. He was dressed in a black suit, which may originally have been tailor-made, but which now looked a size or two on the large side. His rumpled shirt was also black. He wore the top button open, with a blood-red tie hanging loosely round his neck.

His eyes were hidden behind a pair of designer sunglasses. He had rings on almost every finger and a gold watch on his wrist that was tarnished and scuffed. The man stared back at Zac and took a long, deep draw on a cigarette.

“Who are you supposed to be?” Zac asked.

There was a loud crack and pain tore across his back. He cried out with the shock and the heat of it. The old man puffed on his cigarette, unflinching.

“You do not address the Dark Lord,” Haures snarled. He stepped into view, coiling his tail in his hands like a bullwhip.

Zac hissed through his teeth, breathing out the worst of the pain. “Dark Lord?” he frowned. “You mean...?” He looked the grey-haired man up and down. “Nah.”

“Silence!” Haures roared. He flicked the tail and Zac felt a wasp sting across his cheek. “And bow your head before the Father of All Lies.”

Zac groaned. “Dark Lord? Father of All Lies? What is it with you people having so many names? You’re as bad as Odin.”

Veins bulged on Haures’s neck and forehead. “I said silence, you worthless little—”

“Haures.”

The Dark Lord’s voice was low and calm, but it stopped Haures immediately. The cigarette butt was dropped on the floor, then ground out beneath the heel of a well-worn leather shoe.

The Father of All Lies clapped his hands slowly three or four times. “Impressive,” he said. “You succeeded in getting on Haures’s bad side. That’s something you may come to regret.”

Zac said nothing. Despite the calm voice and the unassuming appearance, everything about the man screamed danger. Evil emanated from him with such force that Zac almost started to believe in auras. He could sense the Dark Lord’s, all black and twisted and rotten and wrong.

“Wh-where are we?” coughed Angelo, fully wakening. “Where are we? What’s happening? Who... who are you?”

“He’s Satan,” Zac said before Haures could start shouting again.

Angelo looked at the man in the suit. “Satan?” he said with a gasp. “You’re Satan?” He looked the man up and down. “I thought you’d be taller.”

The Dark Lord shrugged. “Not always,” he said. “My associate here is Haures. He is one of the Dukes of Hell.”

Angelo giggled sharply, then bit his lip. All eyes turned in his direction.

“Something funny?” asked Satan.

“Um, no,” Angelo said.

“Well, clearly something made you laugh. Would you care to share it with the rest of us?”

Angelo swallowed nervously. “It’s just... I thought you were going to say he was one of the Dukes of Hazzard.”

There was a pause. Behind his sunglasses, the Dark Lord blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“The Dukes of Hazzard,” repeated Angelo. From the expression on his face it was clear Satan was none the wiser. Angelo felt himself shrink beneath both demons’ gaze. “It’s an old TV show,” he said meekly, “about some people who drive fast.”

The Father of All Lies rubbed his teeth with his tongue. It made a rasping sound, like sandpaper. “The Dukes of Hazzard,” he said slowly. “The Dukes of Hazzard. Is that one of ours?”

“No, sir,” said Haures.

“Is it the one with the talking car?”

Haures cleared his throat gently. “You’re thinking of Knight Rider, sir.”

“Ah, yes, so I am. That was one of ours, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” confirmed Haures. “That was one of ours.”

Satan waved a hand dismissively. “Enough. You asked where you are. You are in the tenth circle of Hell. Try not to touch anything, some of the paint’s still wet.” His eyes moved behind the sunglasses, looking at them both in turn. “You’re here for the Book of Doom. Correct?”

“That’s right,” Zac nodded. “So if you’ll just hand it over, we’ll get out of your hair.”

“Haha, yes,” said Satan without mirth. “Very good. I’m sure you’ve already guessed that we had an ulterior motive for getting you down here. We’ve been watching you for a long time. Just between us, we never actually cared about the book. We just thought it might make good bait with which to draw you down.”

“Well, it worked,” said Zac. “But why? I don’t understand. What do you want with me?”

The Dark Lord’s head shifted just a fraction in his direction. “You?” he said. “Why would we want anything from you? I was talking to him.” He turned his head towards Angelo.

Angelo and Zac exchanged a puzzled glance.

“Me?”

“Him?”

“Why did you want me?”

“You are unique, Angelo,” Satan said. “One of a kind, almost certainly never to be repeated. And that makes you important. And it makes you fascinating.” He gestured around at the stark walls and spotless worktops. “All this is for you, Angelo. We built the tenth circle for you, so that we may... get to know you better. Because you are special, my boy. Half angel and – drumroll, please – half demon.”

“I know that,” Angelo said.

Satan missed a beat. “Oh,” he said. “Right. Do you?”

Angelo puffed out his pigeon chest. “My dad told me.”

“Ah,” said Satan. “Well, that’s disappointing. I was looking forward to revealing that.” He paced round the metal frames that held both boys, examining Angelo from all angles.

“You’ve spent such a long time up there,” he said. “Now it’s time you joined us down here for a while and indulged your dark side.”

Angelo frowned. “What?”

The Dark Lord was interrupted before he could reply by the sound of a ringing phone. Eliza, the hunchbacked demon with the liquid bottle, flipped open a handset and pressed it to her ear.

“Yes?”

She listened intently, watched by the other four people in the room. After a moment, she moved the phone away from her ear.

“It’s the fourth circle, sir. About the hot pokers. They’re asking should they go through the eyes or up the bottom?”

Satan tapped a finger against his chin as he considered this. “Why not both?”

The hunchback nodded, spoke the instruction into the phone, then snapped it closed.

“Where was I?” Satan asked. He rocked back on his heels. “Ah, yes. Put him in the chair.”

At that, everything seemed to grind into slow motion. Zac saw Haures lunge for Angelo, heard Angelo cry out in panic and fear. Shapes moved in the corners of Zac’s eyes. He turned and saw a dozen or more demons in surgical clothing swarming towards the reclining chair. Had they been there the entire time, or was there a door behind him? A way out? An escape route? He twisted his neck, trying to see, but all he saw was white wall and silver worktop, and all he heard were Angelo’s squeals as Haures unhooked him and carried him over towards the chair.

“What are you doing with him?” Zac cried. He pulled at his chains, but they held fast. “Let him go. Leave him alone.”

Angelo was bucking and thrashing in Haures’s arms, kicking out with his bare feet and biting at anything that came within reach. He shouted angrily. He pleaded and sobbed. He tried everything he could to stop them putting him in that chair, but then he was on it, and then he was strapped in, and then he was trapped.

The demons in the surgeon outfits chittered excitedly behind their masks. Their dark eyes swept over Angelo, appraising him even as their gnarled hands rubbed together with glee.

“The book.”

Zac tore his eyes from Angelo. The Dark Lord stood beside him, a heavy leather-bound book balanced on the palm of one hand. A small padlock and strap fastened the pages closed. On the cover, the words: THY BOOK OF EVERYTHING glowed faintly in shades of gold.

“What, you’re just giving it to me?” he asked.

Satan shrugged. “I don’t want it. It has served its purpose. Keeping it would start a war, and that’s the last thing anyone needs.”

“You’ve already started a war,” Zac told him. “If you don’t let Angelo go, they’ll send an army.”

“Will they indeed?” said Satan. “We’ll see.”

He walked behind Zac and unzipped the backpack. The book was shoved roughly inside before the zip was fastened once more. Zac looked back at Angelo. Something like an oxygen mask had been slipped over his face, but the gas flowing in through his mouth and nostrils was a dark, brooding red. Angelo’s eyes were bulging, staring up at the ceiling, but he was no longer fighting against the straps.

Satan appeared in front of Zac again. “Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of your friend.” He tapped himself on the forehead. “Wait, I forgot – he isn’t your friend, he’s your colleague. Isn’t that right?”

Zac didn’t reply, just kept watching the boy in the chair.

“You have what you came for, Zac Corgan. You can return a hero and have all your sins washed away. Play your cards right and you’ll never have to see me again.” He smiled thinly. “And won’t your grandfather be pleased to have you home?”

The mention of his grandfather made Zac look Satan’s way. The Dark Lord’s face became solemn. “Anyway, he was miserable up there. No friends. All alone. And that tattoo? Horrible. Who’s to say he won’t be happier down here with us? With his daddy and all his aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters.”

Zac could feel the demon inside his head, twisting his thoughts and fogging his brain. “I’m... I’m not leaving without him,” he hissed. “I’m not leaving him here.”

The Dark Lord Satan, Father of All Lies, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, nodded. “Oh, but the thing is,” he said, “you don’t have any choice.”

Then he smiled and snapped his fingers. The room around Zac began to fade. He saw Angelo’s head loll sideways to look at him. “Don’t go,” the boy wheezed. “P-please.”

“I’ll come back!” Zac shouted. “I’ll get help and come back. I promise!”

Then the room faded completely, and Angelo was abandoned to all the demons of Hell.