The chorus of Back to Black erupted into the air when the front door opened.

"Christ. What is this racket?"

A brisk clatter of shoes, and my delightful flatmate Sean walked into the living room, coat in hand, a frown on his face.

"It's Amy Winehouse, Sean," I said. "Not a racket. But I'll turn it down, since you asked so nicely."

I was celebrating, as a matter of fact. I'd just passed my latest exams with flying colours and Head Fireman Williams had informed me personally I was now ready for the next part of the training. Ecstatic as I'd been, I felt my earlier mood deflating at Sean's presence.

Boy did that guy know how to sour anyone in an instant. We'd been sharing this flat in Camden Town for a couple of years, sometimes accompanied by other people, sometimes not, and you'd think we'd be used to coinhabiting by now, but we weren't.

Sean was a hygiene maniac and insisted on hiring a cleaner, but I thought it was totally unnecessary. He claimed I always made too much noise and frowned on me having friends over, while I wished he'd lighten up. He'd recently graduated with a Literature degree and looked down his nose on anyone who didn't read The Odyssey for fun.

In other words, we couldn't stand each other.

Sean strode out of sight. I heard the fridge click open and the hiss of a can.

"You better turn it right off. I've got to work on my doctoral thesis and I can't hear myself think. Weren't you going to be away this evening, in fact?" he called from the kitchen.

I resisted the urge to bash him on the head with whatever was at hand.

"Hey, you really know how to make a girl feel wanted, Sean. And no, change of plan. I'm staying in tonight, sorry to disappoint you."

"Why?"

He reappeared in the doorway, sipping at a beer. He ran a hand over his crew cut. There was something of the bloodhound about Sean: he had heavy jowls, drooping, melancholy eyes, and a restless manner. I could imagine him briskly sniffing around for plump rabbits only too well.

"Well, I've got to babysit someone," I said. "My parents are going out tonight and he hates being left on his own, you see."

"What? Babysit here? I thought I'd just told you I need silence. And where's the kid, anyway?"

I fought down a smirk. "Don't worry, you won't hear a squeak from him." I whistled. "Cerb, come here, boy. There's a good boy."

A moment later the room crashed into sound as the coffee table was knocked over. Sean raised his eyes from the smashed pieces of a vase to the hulking black form in front of him. I saw the colour bleed out of his face.

"W-what is that?"

"He's not a that. He's a who," I said, grinning. "Sean, meet lovely Cerberus. Cerb, this is Sean. No, you can't chew his leg off yet, lovie. Better wait when he's distracted."

*

"A steak for you, sir – and what would you like, miss? A salad, maybe?"

Eden glared at the waiter. "Or maybe not. I'd like a cheeseburger, please. Actually, make that two cheeseburgers, I'm starving."

As soon as he was out of earshot, Kal snorted. She turned her scowl on him.

"What's so funny?"

"You, Eds. You remind me of my aunt's growling Yorkshire terrier."

"It gets on my fucking nerves, you know. Everyone assuming I don't eat just because I'm a girl, like I should be all delicate or something. That's plain sexism, that's what it is. You know what, I'm going to the demonstration on women's rights next month, see if I don't –"

"...right." Kal cleared his throat. "Hey, my folks are hosting a dinner or whatever at theirs in a couple of weeks, want to come? They're always gushing on about you, Eden. Saying you're such a 'good influence' on me. Or some crap of the sort."

She took a huge defiant bite from her cheeseburger. "That's not crap."

"You know what I mean. Take pity on me, please. I can't stand another evening of lecturing on martyrdom. It's nauseating."

"Mm."

"It'll be bearable if you're there with me. Go on, Eds. Nate's great. My aunt and uncle are great. And Cassandra's not that bad either, as long as you're wearing earplugs the entire time you're speaking to her."

A wheeze of laughter from Eden.

"Kal, be kind, you bastard."

There it was again, the effect he had on her. Then he saw the smile sliding from her face as she looked at him.

"You're really not like them, are you? You're – you're different," she said, quietly.

She wasn't judging him, not Eden, never Eden, but he felt himself stiffening nonetheless.

"I guess I am," Kal said, in as light a tone as he managed to.

A trickle of pain. He shoved it down.

She was right. He was different, no matter how long the trail of dead demons in his wake grew.

 Different from his family, with their absurd sacrifices and infuriating virtuousness and limpid gazes. Different from her, the solemn doctor who, even if she was cranky, strove to save lives.

He'd feel it, sometimes, in a glance shot at him from the corner of their eyes and in the shadow of an expression rippling across a face.

Kal Mellketh was an outcast.

He'd been one all his life.

When they were finished, they walked out into the grey January day. At the entrance of the restaurant, a beggar crouched in a tangle of crumpled newspapers.

"How're you doing, John?" Kal said, dropping a fiver into the man's upturned cap.

"Gettin' by, lad. Gettin' by." The beggar smiled down at the cap. "You're a good person, mister Mellketh."

"Totally," Kal agreed. "Sometimes, at any rate."

*

"He gets a bit over-excited with strangers, that's all. Not to worry," I said. "Down, Cerb."

Cerberus tapped at Sean's chest with a paw the size of a small African village, and let out a plaintive whine.

"He wants you to play with him, Sean," I said, chuckling. "Go on, humour him."

My flatmate struggled into a sitting position, still white in the face.

"Is he a – a mutant or something? Or is he ill? Why does he have – why is he –"

"Three-headed?" I suggested, and he gave a shaky nod.

The thing is, he was the guardian of the gates of Hell, up until ten years ago when he suffered a nasty femur fracture on his left hind leg and They considered him no longer able to do his job properly, you see. Then my parents and I adopted him.

"Er. Nothing's wrong with him, aside from his limp. He was. Um. Born that way," I mumbled. "He's just a poor stray we took in."

Cerberus looked insulted.

"Huh. Right," mumbled Sean.

He balanced a stuffed giraffe in front of my dog's three pairs of huge eyes, which flickered from side to side as though he were watching a riveting tennis match.

Cerberus was having a ball here on Earth, as a matter of fact. He couldn't believe he'd gone thousands of years without playing tug-of-war. He made a mental note to develop another incorrigible limp, just in case the lot from Below poked their noses in mortal affairs and started asking awkward questions. 

He didn't miss it one little bit: the Damned were no fun at all. Plus, he considered gravely, there were no cats to chase in the Underworld.

Then he leapt up into the air with an overjoyed bark and snatched the toy off Sean's hand, nearly ripping his fingers in the process.

Toy between his teeth, Cerb sat by Sean's side, tail thumping happily on the carpet.

"Good boy," Sean murmured, patting each of his heads in turn. "Lovely boy."

I beamed at them both. "Hey, I think you're going to get on just fine."

*

The demon was lying on the grass in Hyde Park, scrolling through his phone.

"Are you sure he's ...?" Eden whispered, as they approached.

"Of course I'm sure. Quit fussing, Eds."

"Well, you quit being so ... so reckless, Kal. You never stop to think for a single minute. What if we get it wrong one day and – and kill an innocent human? Like – like your moth– "

Kal's chest tightened. "We won't."

The demon glanced up at the sound of their footsteps.

"Hey." Eden ruffled her blonde hair and smiled at him. "You got a fag, mate?"

The man smiled back. "Might have one just for you, beautiful."

It was as he turned sideways to rummage in his bag that she lunged forward, sending the phone flying through the air.

"What the –"

The demon jolted in shock, and tried to pry the girl off his chest, but Eden was strong. She straddled him and pinned him down firmly. A second later Kal was by her side.

"Is this some kind of sick joke or something?" Then the demon tensed, and hissed: "Angels." He spat at them.

Kal felt the saliva dripping down his nose.

"Now, now, no need to be rude," he said.

The demon struggled beneath their hands, snarling curses at them. Kal and Eden concentrated, together, in perfect synchrony, as the shadows shuddered around them and the air rippled.

A minute. Sweat started to trickle down their foreheads.

Two minutes. Kal's heart was pounding with the effort.

Four.

Then they felt the man go limp under their grasp, and they watched his jaw slacken. There was a lull, and the shadows coiled again into the corners with a hiss.

"Holy shit," Eden panted, slumping down on the grass. "This one put up a fight."

Kal was staring at the freshly Forgotten demon sprawled next to her. They had about ten minutes left before he came to.

"Doesn't it sometimes strike you how it's – too easy for them? That they should suffer more?" Kal burst out.

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew he'd made a mistake.

Eden shot him an exasperated look.

"You know the theory, Kal. Nobody deserves to suffer, not even demons, and so on and so forth. We only remove them because they're a threat to human society. Because they're evil and disrupt the balance of the world, not because they actually deserve to. Right?"

Wrong.

"Besides, I'm willing to bet they do suffer," Eden said. "Imagine what it feels like, being Forgotten. Nobody remembering you, not even your nearest and dearest. Talking through you. Not seeing you. As if you were invisible, or never existed in the first place. I'd go mad." A pause. "And then Forgetting yourself. Forgetting to eat and drink and sleep. Forgetting your body, feeling like it doesn't belong to you, so you end up chopping off a hand, or a leg." Then, matter-of-factly, as an afterthought: "They all die, of course, or do away with themselves."

"Don't you lecture me too, Eden," Kal snapped. He saw the stung look on her face, but he couldn't help it, didn't care. "They killed my parents. They killed them." He cursed the tremor in his voice. "My mother wasn't even an angel. She was human, but they killed her anyway. Maybe you're right, okay? I don't want to be like that -- don't want the blood of innocents on my hands. I'll be less reckless – happy now? "

He could still conjure up the sound of his father's booming laugh the summer he taught him to ride a bike. The feel of his mother's soft hands when he curled up against her to watch old white-and-black films. Her favourite had been Casablanca; she'd been able to recite whole passages of it by heart.

"They weren't even too fond of demon hunting; they were more of the helping-others-crap kind of people. And I was a kid. Imagine how that felt like." He was breathing hard. "They ended their lives, ruined Nate's life. Ruined me. So no, don't you bloody dare lecture me, Eden."

Eden looked at him coldly. "Are you done shouting like a madman?"

Kal turned away from her. 

Then, after a moment, he said: "Come on. We should get a move on." He sighed, and swallowed his pride. "I'm sorry, Eds."

She nodded. "I know."

Then something caught Kal's gaze: a sleek bulge on the demon's wrist that glinted in the sunlight. He kneeled down and clicked the expensive watch off. He casually slipped it into his own pocket. Eden watched with pursed lips and said nothing.

As they left, Kal hastened one last glance over his shoulder at the – the flea, and felt a singular sense of peace spread over him.

"I'd like to say I'm sorry," he told the being on the grass. "But I'm not."

With a thrill, he wondered who the next one would be.