26 Views of Mount Meggido

Summary: Others can fight the monsters and wrestle the metaphysics. All Ezekiel Stone wants out of his afterlife is his marriage.
Disclaimer: Brimstone (BEI Brimstone and Warner Bros. Television), FOX, 1998-1999; Other Fandom (Warner Bros. Television, Wonderland Sound and Vision), WB/CW, 2005-present. Effusive, flailing thanks: Betas were random_chick and Basingstoke. They survived the first draft, and they found so many problems and were encouraging when it was desperately needed. So. Much. Gratitude. Written for Angie in the 2008 Yuletide challenge.

A Mountain in the Distance

1. View from a hotel room in L.A., March 1999

When Ezekiel Stone was a rookie cop, back in New York City, their precinct captain harangued them each morning with a pep talk that always concluded, "Get out there, get it done -- you can relax when you're dead." At the time, Zeke found that more unsettling than inspiring; with the benefit of hindsight, he sees it as a sound suggestion.

Zeke's practicing to be a laid-back guy.

The world changes around him, but over the past six months Zeke has remained the same. His hair, his nails, the stubble on his face, the clothes on his back (the number of bullets in his gun each morning). Nothing changes for him. He's a still center of a revolving world. (A black pit rotting underneath it.) As his employer reminds him (often), Zeke doesn't need to sleep, he doesn't need to eat, he doesn't need to do anything but fulfill his contract.

("You can be replaced, Detective," the convenience store clerk informs him when he hands Zeke his short-change. "Never forget that.")

But Zeke likes to eat breakfast. He likes his coffee black, his hashbrowns salty, his eggs over easy, and he likes the quiet diner where he watches the world rush by the windows. It relaxes him. Zeke likes to brush his teeth, leisurely sessions when he mulls over the day he's had, the day he's going to have. He likes long, hot showers, at least until the next guy waiting his turn in the hall pounds on the door. Zeke likes to read books, and magazines, and the morning paper. He likes taking care of his cat, Buster. Zeke's been thinking maybe he should have a hobby or two; other people have them.

("You're not 'other people,' Mr. Stone," says the man washing the storefront window, "you're dead." Zeke's perfecting the art of ignoring him. Maybe this can count as his first hobby.)

Zeke likes to go to bed early at night, and he loves sleeping late in the morning. Zeke has this recurring dream. He knows it's a dream because his life wasn't (isn't) like this. He was a pretty driven guy. While he was married, Zeke never took the days off; he spent more time with his partner than he spent with his wife. He had a thick folder of commendations. It's only now, now that he's dead, that he's been taking the time to smell the flowers (acid, burning scent).

Zeke can (still) distinguish a dream (sharp, tactile) from reality (blunted, blurred).

Zeke knows his wife (widow) isn't here with him, in this room, in his bed.

But it's so damned vivid that at first he always thinks this is real, finally, oh thank god. Rosalyn is lying next to him in his bed in the hotel. She's kissing him, slow and wet, they're taking their time. She rubs against him, and he can see she doesn't care about his tattoos. She swings her leg over his hips, slowly taking him in. Ros is rocking against him; she's leaning down, and her dark hair's falling over her shoulders, tickling his chin. Zeke closes his eyes at the sensation. He can feel her body moving over him, around him. He feels the moistness with his fingers, and the clenching, tight heat inside her.

He slides his hands over her smooth thighs, clutches her hips. He opens his eyes. Ash pushes aside her short blonde hair, gazes down at him; her hips roll under his hands. She combs her slim fingers through the hair on his chest; she lightly strokes one of his tattoos, over his heart. "What's this one mean?" she asks.

"I don't know," he admits.

"I miss you, Zeke," Ros says. "I do love you, even after all this time." Ros's yellow eyes are damp.

"You don't know me," he tells her. "You said that."

"No, you're right," Ros agrees. Tears streak her face now. "I don't know you anymore."

Zeke's wife isn't here. (Ash isn't here.) But it feels real, it feels so perfect; he doesn't know why she wants to ruin it like this. "I know I made mistakes," he tells Ros. "But you're more important than any job. I'll stay home. This is all I want, to be with you. We can have kids. I want a daughter who looks like you."

"I have a daughter," Ash tells him.

"You killed her," he says. "You told me that."

"I protected her," Ash says. "I saved her. You don't understand. You can't."

"I don't have to, Ash," he tells her. He grips her hips, grinding her down harder, faster. "I'm going to kill you anyway."

"No, Ezekiel. For Ashur Badaktu, Priestess of Ashureth, of the temple of Tyre, loved her daughter above all things," she says, softly, a chant against his lips, "thus will she burn this world that your god built for your people on her ashes."

Zeke's on the edge, but something here is important. Something about Ros. Something about Ash. Something about himself.

That's when Buster walks on his face. Cats don't care about relationships or revelations. They care about food in the morning. That, Zeke can understand without any effort at all.

Zeke rolls over, yawning, and his employer eyes Zeke over his glasses and the morning paper. He's helped himself to Zeke's orange juice again. "The late bird feeds the worms, Detective."

Zeke ignores him and stumbles over to shake out a bowl of cat food.

2. View from a suburb in L.A., March 1999

Max, the manager at Zeke's fleabag hotel, tells him that he should get out of his room and "own his issues" and be "more proactive in his journey of recovery." Zeke hasn't told her that what he's recovering from is fifteen years in hell, and that his main issue is being a corpse. But, still, he figures it's probably not bad advice -- after she'd translated it for him from Californian to English.

So Zeke's been taking "proactive" out for a spin. He's on a vacation from his exhausting schedule of reading and staring at the wall and watching his cat sleep and evading his employer. Zeke's been visiting his wife.

Tonight, Zeke's been crouching in the bushes along her property for a few hours. The patrol car that's begun to cruise Euclid a few times each night is regular as a windup toy, so it hasn't bothered him.

He's good with this distance for now, even though he can't see a lot from here. Ros has put up blinds on her kitchen windows, and she has new, thicker curtains on all of the others. Zeke can't watch her in her living room at night any longer. As a cop, Zeke approves wholeheartedly. Ros should have been a lot more security conscious before. Considering why she'd moved to California. Considering the whole reason she'd moved out here from New York was--

Max tells Zeke that he should call Ros up, find out how she's doing. She tells Zeke he should invite Ros out for coffee or something, talk over their split. Max thinks he should consider couples therapy. Zeke's never told Max that the last time Ros saw him was as a body on a morgue slab over a decade ago. He's not sure how counseling would handle that kind of issue.

Now that the local beat has rolled by, Zeke can move a little closer, over by the tree on the sidelawn.

Zeke has Ros's schedule down to a science now. He's made up for lost time, trailed her for days, learned her patterns. He knows where she teaches, where she shops, where she banks. He knows who her friends are, which neighbors she's on good terms with, which men she--

Her lights will go off in another half hour; Ros has to stay later than the other teachers at the junior high tomorrow because she's been meeting with the drama club students. Zeke will have plenty of time to let himself in after she's left; he just needs to be sure everything's secure. She used to hide her spare key outside under the third rock from the end of the right corner of the porch; he'd used it a few times. That's gone now, too, and Ros changed the locks. Zeke recognized the brands though, so they haven't been much of a challenge.

Zeke had left her a present after he'd run Ash out of town on the proverbial rail. He hasn't found that snow globe in her collection yet, but he's sure she has it somewhere. Zeke needs to know what she's done with it. That's the clue he needs. He needs to know whether she misses him as much as he misses her. He could leave Ros another present. Maybe he should leave some flowers on the counter in her kitchen this time. Not roses, though -- Ash has ruined those for good.

Ash shouldn't have had such an easy time worming her way into Ros's life. But mostly that's Zeke's fault, he knows. He hadn't been watching Ros properly before.

Zeke starts to stand as Ros's bedroom light goes out, and he's genuinely startled when the hand presses into his shoulder.

He's got company again. Ros's bushes are Grand Central Station these days. "It's so wonderful that you're looking out for Rosalyn," he murmurs in Zeke's ear. "Never lose faith, Ezekiel. I believe that you're meant to be."

"You 'believe' that." He glances over; his eyesight in the dark is 20/20 now, but it wouldn't matter. Angels seem to stand out clearer than their surroundings.

"Oh, absolutely, Ezekiel!" This particular angel is awfully chipper for 10:30 at night, and he's fiddling coyly with his damn kerchief again.

"You know what? About that, I've got a question."

"A question?" He smiles broadly, and slaps his hands on his legs. "Of course, Ezekiel. What is it?"

"I was just wondering if you can change the past."

"Change the past?" He cocks his head, birdlike, and blinks at Zeke. He's the picture of perplexity. "Why would anyone want to?"

"It's just that--" Zeke's getting worried. He's noticed how Ros's hair has started to go gray. "Look, how exactly is it that I'll be getting my life back? I mean, after I've kicked all hundred and thirteen of these slimeballs back to hell? No one's giving me a straight answer on this."

"The past no longer matters, Ezekiel," he assures Zeke earnestly. "And as long as you're doing God's work, you're making your own future." He snorts, disgusted. "Never let him convince you otherwise."

Zeke sighs to himself. "Do I get tea with my fortune cookie?"

"What do you mean, Ezekiel?"

"Nothing. Forget it." Zeke wonders sometimes why this angel's smile and eyes always seem so damned empty to him.

"Ezekiel," he says firmly, "remember how much your work is appreciated."

"Sure." Zeke looks away. "I hear that a lot."

3. View from a laundromat in L.A., May 1999

Phone booths are weirdly hard to come by these days, Zeke's found. Finding one that still works is even more of a challenge, so he's had this particular payphone staked out for a while. The change box looks like its been crowbarred a half-dozen times, but the current lock's heavy duty and is standing up to the assaults. So it's a bad neighborhood but a quiet street, a laundromat with a dour, closed-mouthed attendant and very few customers at this hour if you don't count the dealers hanging out on the curb.

The attendant is folding sheets around the corner to the soft strains of mariachi music; as usual he doesn't even look up when Zeke slinks in.

Zeke could use the payphone in the lobby back at the hotel, but he likes his privacy. He doesn't feel like "sharing" this with Max or any of the collection of lobby lizards. This phone has a dial tone, and that's all Zeke requires. He sets out his small stacks of quarters on the remains of the shelf, then starts plugging in the first pile. He dials the number. He waits.

You've reached the Stone residence. Please leave a message.

Zeke presses down the lever, waits for the dial tone, replaying her voice in his mind. He sweeps up the next stack, drops in his quarters, jabs a rapid rhythm on the number pad, waits.

You've reached the Stone residence. Please leave a message.

He's on his fifth call when he notices that the attendant is leaning on the nearby laundry table. He's paging idly through one of those tattered, coffee-stained tabloids from the waiting area.

"Oh, terrific," Zeke mutters, hanging up. He scoops the remaining quarters into his coat pocket. "What now?"

"Your lack of intellectual curiosity is disappointing, Detective," he says, turning over a page, and shaking out the creases. He glances over at Zeke. "You really should take more of an interest in current events."

"I'm taking 'em at my own pace," Zeke says. Catching up has been nothing like easy. The accumulation of minor details throws him again and again. Max's expression when he asked about that little record player she clips to her belt was a case in point. Zeke's getting seriously peeved by how creatures like Ash take this all in stride: background, apartment, job, computer, money, car. The sad fact is that most of Zeke's quarry are a hell of a lot more adaptable than he is; a few times that's made a critical difference.

"Really? You seem more interested in the past than the present," he observes, a gesture at the phone. "Still too shy to leave a message, Mr. Stone? Or is shyness the fundamental problem?"

"It's none of your business."

"My business is your business, Mr. Stone. And my business has been shamefully neglected of late."

Zeke shrugs. "I've been keeping an eye out. I haven't seen anyone else pop up around here."

The attendant looks him narrowly, taps his chin. "Hmmm! Now, what could that signify? Let's think about it, shall we? Why, I have an idea! Could it be that you've dealt with all of the lemmings who scrambled toward the sea? Could it be that those with slightly more intelligence -- or, at the very least, a more highly developed sense of self-preservation -- are elsewhere?" He tilts his head, frowning to himself. "Do you think they might be avoiding you, Detective? Could it be your deodorant? But they exude that same brimstone aroma as you . . ."

"Oh, c'mon." Zeke huffs, but he's wondering now. When the attendant turns his attention to ostentatiously folding his tabloid, Zeke surreptitiously sniffs his sleeve.

"So, as I was saying," he slaps the paper down on the table, "current events. Let us keep abreast of them, Detective."

"Yeah, and I guess Weekly World News should be my one-stop shopping?" Zeke glances at the headline: "Supermodel Spontaneous Combustion! Could Tyra Be Next?" it screams. The article underneath says something about aliens.

"You could do worse," he tells Zeke. "In fact, you will indeed do worse -- far worse -- shortly if you don't stir yourself to action very soon, Ezekiel." Zeke catches the note of warning, and knows that that this time it's real. He swallows.

"So, uh, supermodels in peril, huh. How'm I supposed to get to New York?"

"The same way you fetched yourself thence to California? That is hardly my concern, Mr. Stone."

Zeke sighs. He hates hitchhiking; for some reason, people seem reluctant to give him a lift.

"Here," he says to Zeke, holding out a flat box that reminds him of Kleenex. "It's called 'fabric softener.' Smell this, and give me your opinion."

Zeke leans over and cautiously sniffs. He gets a noseful of floral mixed with pine and lemon and god knows what else; the chemical reek rocks him back on his heels. "Jesus H. Christ," he spits out, holding his nose. "What the hell is that?"

"Yes, I was rather wondering that myself. It's perfectly foul, isn't it? Ah, the modern world." He turns to the wall of dryers, and begins to pluck tissues out of the box and fling them into each dryer on the wall in turn, including those that are currently rotating clothes. "So it is time that you live up to that badge you're perpetually flashing, Mr. Stone. Go, gloriously return to your roots."

Back to New York City again. Zeke slumps. He can hardly contain his excitement.

4. View from the fashion district in New York, July 1999

Zeke didn't really grok fashion back when he was alive. Ros had dubbed him Second-Hand Zeke, said his habit of throwing on whatever first came to hand was appalling but kind of endearing. He hopes she still feels that way, 'cause he's never going to change: Ever since he crawled out of his New York cemetery, no matter what he wears, it becomes the same bleak November layers he'd died in. First, the colors leech away; finally, the clothing itself creeps back to his original set. The windbreaker he'd gotten to replace his burned coat took a few weeks to revert. Initially, Zeke found it pretty damned disturbing; but the contents of his wallet reset each night as well, so mostly he's just relieved. He could write a book, "How to Live on $36.27 a Day."

Except he can't claim much expertise on the "living" part any more.

So, sure, Zeke wishes he'd been wearing different clothes when he died sometimes, but he's grateful not to be stuck with the full-dress uniform he got planted in. Now that would be a bitch to explain away every day.

That's why Arlindo Vicente deserves, in Zeke's modest opinion, to collect his coatcheck in hell. He's far too invested in this whole image thing. Melting the clothes off unappreciative women, along with a lot of their skin, isn't winning him any style points in Zeke's book.

"Hey, Lindy -- I can call you Lindy, right?" Zeke calls around the corner. The whole floor housing Atelier Vicente is going up in flames around them. Zeke's not bothered by the heat, but he can't get a clear shot from here.

"No, you cannot!" Vicente screams back. "Fuck you!" It comes out sounding more like "fooka yoo," which sort of ruins the intended effect.

"Lindy, listen up. I'm closing down your sweat-shop here, and we can do this nice and easy. If you make me work for it, I'll make you regret it."

"Regret it!" Vicente's laughing like the lunatic he is. "Regret it? Do you have any idea how long I was in hell? Do you not understand? An artiste such as myself does not belong there -- I traveled the whole of Europe, Stone! Mine was the hand to dress the court of the Sun King himself, you badly-dressed bourgeois salaud!"

Whatever that means. "Uh. I'm hurt?"

"I am the hurt one, Stone. I am meant to be here, where my genius is embraced. You ragged, homeless peasant, you never should have left the Tasteless Coast."

"No argument from me, Lindy." Zeke drops and cautiously crawls over to one of the worktables. He can see Vicente's leg, and there's the hem of that formal he's clutching -- it's smoking, melting in white-hot, plastic ribbons that peel off and puddle onto the floor. Zeke can guess who Vicente's planning to throw that on, but he's still facing that corner where Zeke was before. Zeke's not overly concerned; acid personality is all Vicente's got going for him. Otherwise, he's nothing but a jumped-up tailor.

"So, Stone, if you agree with me, then why--"

One smooth movement: Zeke stands, aims, and has plenty of time to squeeze off a shot as Vicente turns. Vicente's down -- one eye gone, dirty soul spilling from the hole, a piercing scream of rage.

Zeke pulls from his pocket the pair of shears he'd found on the floor a few rooms ago. "That's the thing, Lindy," he says, kicking Vicente's shielding hands away. "It's not up to me." Zeke stabs the scissors down into his remaining eye.

Scratch one fashion fiend. Zeke clenches his jaw, waits out the tattoo burning itself off his lower right leg. He's only five floors up, so a quick leap down from a back window to the side street clears him of the sirens. Some of these guys got too comfy, moving in and settling down after Zeke'd left; he needs to clean them out. Zeke pops his clip and does a quick verification. He's right, only six bullets went into this job. He's got more than enough to put down that busker who's shattering eardrums in the Village. He'll be back up to fifteen tomorrow, can start rooting out the rest of the vermin.

Then he can head back to the West Coast. But it's not the beach he wants to see.

5. View from office windows in California, February 2000

"I'm sorry," the real estate agent tells him. Her name's Janice, and Zeke got her information off the sign on Ros's front lawn. "The previous owner specifically requested that no personal information be provided to inquirers. I'll be handling the sale in conjunction with the lawyer and the bank." Zeke notices she's being pretty careful not to let on that the previous owner is a woman. He's not sure why.

"I see," Zeke says, though really he doesn't. "Did the owner say why that is? Is there, uh, some problem with the neighborhood? I'd heard something about . . . snakes."

"I really can't speak to that." Janice smiles stiffly. "There was a minor problem with some exotic pets escaping well over a year ago, but I can assure you that it was swiftly dealt with by animal control. Were you interested in looking at the property?"

"Yeah, I'd been thinking about it," Zeke says, "but I'm pretty sure it's outside my budget these days."

When he came back from New York, his first stop was Euclid Avenue. His next was the real estate agent. Zeke's tracked down a lot of perps in his time; it bothers him using the same procedures for his own wife. The office at her junior high isn't telling him anything either. The secretary refers him directly to the principal. "Ms. Stone no longer works in this school district," she tells him, and she looks at him askance. "If you're with the police, Detective Goner, I'd think you'd have known that."

"Yeah?" He's flying completely off the charts now, feeling his way along the terrain. "So what was the problem, Ms. Peterson? Do you remember which division of the department was handling it? I'm actually tracking down witnesses to a convenience store robbery near there about a year ago, and I was heading back in after this."

"Oh." It must sound plausible enough; she's a little mollified. "Kristin," she says to the secretary, "could you look that up for the detective?"

Detective Barbara Palmer isn't anyone he's met, and this business the principal mentioned about Ros being stalked worries him. A lot. If Ash never left L.A. after all, he needs to know what's happened. But this Palmer isn't going to share any file information with him unless he's got a legit referral. He tries a call to Ash's old partner Fraker. Guy's picked a fine time to go on vacation.

Next he tries the bank -- Ros's widow's benefits go there, he remembers. He has the account number; he can get an address.

Or not. "Tsk, tsk, my dear Detective Stone," says the assistant manager, adjusting his hornrims. "You have no jurisdiction, no warrant, and no cause to be requesting this information. What you do have, however, is a job that is still crying out for your attention. Your lack of concern for that is shocking."

Zeke shrugs. "Yeah, well, how about you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours?"

The manager's mouth curves upward. "An intriguing proposition, Mr. Stone, but perhaps another time. As I recall, at this moment you should be enjoying the Florida sunshine. I thought you were fond of beaches these days?"

"Look," Zeke says, biting back the note of desperation, "you're sitting there, and there's one of those things right there--"

"A computer, Detective. Why yes, your observational skills are unparalleled -- there is!"

"You could just look," Zeke finishes, feeling defeated.

"Make it worth my while, Ezekiel," he says, sitting back in his chair. "So far, it's not." Then he turns to the keyboard. "At any rate, the payments you were inquiring about are placed into the account by direct deposit, so--"

"What's that?"

"Direct deposit?" He chuckles. "Nothing that need concern you, Mr. Stone, as I'm afraid you're too far down the income scale to qualify for banking services at this institution or any other." He frowns. "Although I admit that I'm impressed by your latest trick. The bags in the alleys?"

Zeke stiffens. He should have known that wouldn't pass unnoticed.

"You've been placing the remaining money at the end of each day into a bag, which you tuck into some public nook. As long as it's not in your possession, you can discover it the next day like anyone else. A clever workaround, I must say, but how do you prevent others stumbling over your 'stash,' Mr. Stone?"

"Sometimes they do," Zeke admits reluctantly. "But it's not like I'm getting cost of living increases here. I have to do something." Zeke knows damn well he doesn't have a sympathetic audience here, so he just waits for the boom to descend along with the reminder that he doesn't need food or sleep or even to come in out of the damn rain.

To his surprise, it doesn't come. "You know, it's quite fascinating how simple it is to move a single cent out of one account and nudge it into another. For hundreds and hundreds of customers at once," he says, tapping away at the keyboard, and peering at the screen. "Marvelous. I wonder that you don't at least attempt to use these devices, Detective."

"I have," Zeke says, irritated.

"Oh? Have you? Well, perhaps another solution to the problem will present itself as well to your fertile imagination, eh, Mr. Stone?"

Zeke scowls at him. He's got to know Zeke's memory has started to leak. Anything that's not tied directly to his previous life somehow tends to slip away, for reasons Zeke can't figure out. And, unfortunately, Zeke's office skills had begun and ended with two-fingered typing on a manual.

"In the meantime," the manager coughs, "I do hope you'll remember to dress warmly down there in Florida, Ezekiel. It can be so chilly for your kind in the spring."