How do you know if you’re one of the damned? As a child, Don wanted to become a priest. Now a grown man mostly at ease with being gay, he’s left the Catholic Church and has chosen instead to help people through his work as a parole officer. His strong faith is shaken when his latest assignment turns out to be Michael, a young man Don hasn’t seen since he took Michael to church as a child -- and saw his parish priest cast Michael out of the church as a demon. Meeting him as an adult re-ignites the obsession Don had with the boy he couldn’t save. But can Michael be saved at all? Or is the strangely compelling demon with a taste for risky sex as damned as he believes himself to be?

Angel

Don spoke quietly. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget that day. But the water that burned you was blessed by Father Thomas. It was his church you were flung out of, and his curse that banished you. And he’s a good man, a good Christian—but his faith is narrow, not broad, and it doesn’t bend.” Don gave a wry smile. “I believe he’s still praying for me to turn from the sinful path of homosexuality.”


He paused. “You should come to my church next Sunday. It’ll be different there, if you let it be. I think…I think it has to be a two-way process. No one’s a Christian by default; it doesn’t work like that. Remember what I told you about free will? You have to use it. Exercise your God-given right to choose whether or not to turn to Him.”


“And why should I turn to Him, as you put it? Why should I go against my nature, my origins, and take that risk?”


“Because you’re not happy,” Don told him simply. “I know you’re not—the way you speak, the things you do to yourself- “


Chapter 11