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 a" 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 a" also red a" 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 witha""

"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, wella""

"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 a" 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."