“Asked for?”
“The last time I prayed—in the warehouse—I asked God to find a way to spare Daniel. A way to save him and my family. I told God he could let me die, but I begged Him to spare the others. I was ready to die, but then Daniel jumped from the balcony and was transformed into the white wolf, and then everything turned out the way it did. Everyone was spared, in a way. My plea was answered, but not in the way I expected. The price was not what I was ready to pay. I don’t want that to happen again.” I bit my lip, and we both sat in silence as my thoughts finally started to come together. “I guess deep down I really am angry at God.”
“There are times I have doubted. Times I have lost my way—without my anchor I would probably be lost still. Yet I know there is a purpose in all of this—even if after almost a millennium, I still do not know exactly how God works. But I do know that you need to work out this anger, find your own anchor, and—unlike the unmerciful servant in the story—learn to forgive in order to be forgiven. Even if God is the one you need to forgive. Even if it is yourself.”
I dropped my gaze. Perhaps I was the one I was the most angry with in all of this. I laughed uneasily to break the tension that was thick inside of me. “Remind me to never do a mind-meldy thing with you again. You’re far too perceptive.”
“Mind-meldy?” Gabriel asked. It sounded extra ridiculous with his weird mixture of a European and American accent.
“Oh yeah. I forgot you don’t watch movies.”
“You would think in all these centuries I would find the time.”
“So what’s your anchor?” I asked. I’d never thought of Gabriel as necessarily my friend—but he knew so much about me now, I figured I deserved to ask him a few personal questions. “Eight hundred years is a long time to go without losing your grip.”
“I never said I do not lose my grip sometimes. Quite the opposite.” A dark look passed over his eyes, and I knew asking about those times would be too personal. Then again, I already knew what had happened to his sister, Katharine. She’d died by his hands—teeth—shortly after he’d fallen to the werewolf curse. “But I always find my way back because of her.” Gabriel opened the sketchbook that sat in front of him. A drawing of a woman’s face decorated the page. She was beautiful, with light-colored hair and delicate features, drawn with so much care that they could only have been done by a true artistic master—a master who obviously loved his subject.
“Did you draw this?”
“Yes.” Gabriel tapped the pencil next to the book. “Drawing is one of the things I do when I am agitated. Not quite as effective as tai chi, but people stare at you less for doing it in public.”
“This is beautiful.” I’d thought of Gabriel so much as a monk and a werewolf, and even a high school religion teacher, that I had all but forgotten that he was an artist. He had been one of the sculptors who’d created the gorgeous statues in the Garden of Angels. “May I?” I reached for the sketchbook, eager to see more of his work.
Gabriel nodded and pushed the book toward me. He didn’t make a sound as I flipped through the pages. Every sketch was of the face of this same woman. There was something beyond her beauty, something in her eyes. Like she was in great pain but trying not show it. A weak smile curved her lips, like she was trying to be brave, despite her fears.
“Who is she? Your sister?”
“My wife.”
I glanced up at him. The bruises on his face still looked tender, but they didn’t seem as painful as the look in his eyes—like a reflection of what the woman in the drawings felt.
“You never mentioned that you have a wife.”
“Her name was Marie.” He pronounced it Mah-ree with his strange accent. “She died in childbirth hundreds of years ago. Before I became a monk. Before the Crusades. Before I was cursed.”