Chapter 13
Elisabeth~
As soon as the waitress was finished delivering our drinks, I asked, “You’re really starting to believe all this, aren’t you?”
Lazarus looked at me like I’d just asked him to confess that he was a serial killer, but I didn’t blame him.
Answering yes would be like admitting that you were crazy, and that would be a very difficult thing for a person to do, let alone a psychiatrist. Especially, one that had dismissed the validity of spiritual mental illness at one point.
I eyed him, a small smirk playing on my lips. “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
“This isn’t funny, Lissa,” he drawled out.
I let out a very tired sigh because he was right. “No, it’s not. At the very least, we have someone who is in need of psychiatric help, and that is definitely not funny.”
“Lissa, what if he’s telling the truth?” he asked seriously. “What if this is real?”
As much as I didn’t want to, I couldn’t dismiss Bodhi’s claims altogether, and I knew it. While the alternative was just...just outright insane, there were still just too many truths to his claims, and I couldn’t just brush him off as a charlatan, no matter how easier that would be.
“I don’t know, Russ,” I answered honestly. “It’s hard to grasp when there are still so many unanswered questions racing through my brain.”
“Such as?”
“Like, when is this...this apocalypse supposed to take place?” I asked.
“Where is it supposed to happened? Does it take place here, or are we getting transported to a different realm? Will we still be in human form during this epic battle, or will we be gifted with our own set of wings?” I shook my head, my mind spinning again.
“Even if I buy into the religious aspects of Bodhi’s claims, there are still very real logistics that need to be ironed out, don’t you think? ”
“Maybe those are things that Bodhi will tell us once we commit,” he suggested as he shrugged. “But I’m with you on the probability that we’d lose against demons in our human form.”
I eyed Lazarus, knowing that there had to be more to his role in all this than we were aware. “And then there’s you to consider.”
“Me?” he echoed, his head rearing back a bit. “What about me?”
“What made them scared of you, Lazarus?” I asked. “You were only a small boy in those dreams, hardly a threat. Why didn’t they just...just take me? Why did they back down from you? If I’m the one who’s so powerful, why were they scared of you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he sighed. “I’ve been so focused on your ties to all this that I haven’t given it much thought.”
“Maybe they weren’t scared of you,” I remarked, my mind spinning again. “Maybe they were scared of us.”
“Considering all that Bodhi has told us, that’d make more sense,” he agreed, also mulling it over in his head. “Maybe we’re only unstoppable when we’re together.”
I hated how his words sounded so right somewhere deep inside me, giving more credit to Bodhi’s claims about us as a couple. Honestly, I hated how something so unreal could feel right when I thought about it without the bitterness that I usually felt when thinking about Lazarus Copeland.
On that train of thought, I said, “What I don’t understand is how you believe any of this, Russ.
Why am I the one trying to find the logic in all this, but you.
..you’re just...it’s like you want to give Bodhi’s claims credit, and I don’t understand that.
You, of all people, should be dismissing his claims as delusions or some kinds of psychosis. ”
He leaned his arms on the table, his dark eyes flaring with irritation. “Because there’s no other explanation for how he could know the details of our dreams, Lissa. If you can explain that without your nonsense about childhood nightmares and the boogeyman, then I’m more than willing to listen.”
“So, rather than give him credit for a creative imagination, it makes more sense that he’s Archangel Ramiel and that I’m the savior of humanity?” I countered. “Really, Russ?”
Just then, our waitress returned with our orders, and I watched Lazarus lean back in his seat, giving her some space, and while it was clear that he was irritated, I wasn’t sure why he was upset.
Same as him, I was just trying to figure this thing out, and I was trying to do it without coming to the conclusion that I really was the savior of humanity, because if I was, then we were all fucked.
A flawed human should not be in charge of something so important.
After our waitress did her thing, we both began eating our dinners, steak, potatoes, and broccoli for Lazarus, a platter of fajitas for me. While I didn’t like eating big meals so late in the evening, there was plenty enough to box up for leftovers tomorrow.
A few minutes into our meals, Lazarus said, “It’s more than just the dreams, too.”
“Like what?”
Those dark eyes looked over at me again. “How can he possibly know how I feel about you, Lissa? How can he know such a thing if he’s not who he says he is?”
“It’s not a hard leap to guess that you might have feelings for me after sleeping together, Russ,” I answered. “Again, he might just be a great guesser.”
“And I’d agree with that if he wasn’t so detailed when he described how I felt about you that night,” he shot back. “He talked about our night together, and...and there’s no way that he could know something so...so personal.”
“Okay, let’s just...let’s just think for a second,” I said, wanting to steer away from the conversation about his feelings for me.
“The word Armageddon comes from the Hebrew word Har-Magedone, and that translates to Mount Megiddo, which is supposed to be the location of this...this battle for humanity, and that is not here. It’s somewhere in northern Isreal, which is a long way from here, Russ. ”
“You say that like we can’t get on a plane, Lissa,” he fired back.
“Even so, if Bodhi is...is real, and we’re really talking about Armageddon, then do you know what that means?
” I asked seriously. “The short version is that demons will influence men in power to gather their armies for an assault on Jerusalem with the damn Antichrist in charge. Jesus Christ will return on the Mount of Olives to fight that fight, and while it’s said that He’ll defeat the forces of evil, banishing the Antichrist and binding Satan, where does that leave us? We’re human, Lazarus.”
“I spent my three-day weekend reading The Bible, so I’m very aware,” he replied evenly, like this really wasn’t the craziest conversation that we’d ever had, and that was saying something when you considered that we were both psychiatrists for the mentally disturbed.
“But it’s said that demonic forces will influence the kings of the earth to gather their armies, Lissa.
Which I take to mean that these kings will be human, too. ”
“Then what are we, Russ?” I asked, and I asked because I could already feel myself believing that Bodhi Salmen was Archangel Ramiel. “Are we only human or are we something more. Are we something in between human and angel?”
“I imagine that we’re whatever God needs us to be, Lissa,” he answered quietly.
I shook my head as I muttered, “I need to re-read The Bible.”
“What?” he snorted. “You don’t know it by heart?”
I shot him a look. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do know it by heart. However, I want to re-read Revelations and then look for anything significant in other religious texts.”
“What other texts?”
“The top five most popular religions are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism,” I informed him.
“Christians follow The Bible, Islamic followers look to The Quaran, and Buddhists refer to a number of sacred writings in the form of scriptures that align with their philosophies and teachings.”
“Okay,” he drawled out slowly. “And Hinduism and Judaism?”
“Hinduism has a number of sacred texts that include the Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayana, Samhitas, and Bhagavad Gita,” I explained. “Judaism reference the Tanakh, which is the Hebrew Bible, and the Talmud is another holy text that they use.”
His eyes widened with astonishment. “You’ve read all those books?”
I nodded. “While my practice focuses primarily on Christianity, more pointedly Catholic practices, what kind of effective doctor would I be if I ignored all the other religions out there?”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered as he ran a hand through his dark hair. “Honestly, I had no idea.”
“Don’t give me too much credit,” I told him. “While I’ve memorized The Bible, I haven’t memorized any of the other books.”
“I don’t think that you’re giving yourself enough credit, Lissa,” he replied quietly, and I wasn’t going to go there with him. There were just too many unresolved feelings about this subject.
“I’m just going to have to find a way to juggle my patients, case work, and sleep while I do this,” I remarked absently, thinking out loud. However, that thought was immediately followed up by another one.
Luther Daxton.
Suddenly, it was clear that I was going to have to talk to Luther about his ‘hallucinations’ again.