Grady sits on another plane roughly six months after Luis Grafton’s soul passed through him. The six months has been filled with nightmares and terror combined with dark and terrifying thoughts. The postcard sits near him at all times. He tries repeatedly to figure out how something like that could have been slipped into his magazine. Over the past six months there have been nights that thinking about this has kept him up until the early morning. The phone rang for him three days ago. He is now flying from Ireland to Australia. It is yet another long plane-ride and Grady can’t help but wonder with all of the people surely dying in Ireland, why he has to go all the way around the globe.

The plane is crowded. Grady is thankful for the first-class seating. He takes medication to help with the motion and to help him fall asleep. He affixes headphones into his ears and falls asleep to music. The flight attendants let him sleep. The medication he has been taking to help him sleep also helps with his dreams. He does not see the little girl with the blond hair nearly as much anymore.

Grady spends a lot of time wondering about who he works for. When the phone rang, he was tempted to ask who was at the other end. He is both curious and very afraid. While he often considers his abilities a curse it is all he has really been trained to do. In some ways he is as addicted to this lifestyle as much as he is afraid of it. He doubts there is much work out there for a freelance sin-eater in the modern world.

Beneath the plane the world spins. Oceans and land alternate. Clouds pass by. Turbulence awakens Grady and he shifts in his seat. He studies the faces of those around him. Many more are asleep. Others are watching movies on the small screens that pop up from the arm-rests. He sees the familiar black cloud hovering over a woman who looks only about twenty-eight or twenty-nine. He wonders what fate could be awaiting her that would take her so young. The cloud is not very dark and it is not very big so he figures she has some time yet. If only he could speak to her without her running the other direction in fear.

He reaches into his bag and removes the white card. There is no address. There is no picture on the card. The block letters appear to have come off of a printer. He wonders about fingerprints and such but he doesn’t know anyone in the police department well enough to ask that it be dusted. He doesn’t want to raise any suspicions. There is no information beyond the sentence.

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHO YOU WORK FOR?

He runs his finger over the ink as if he can read the letters like a blind man might be able to read Braille. He cannot figure out who put this in his magazine. He reviews how he purchased the magazine at the typical airport newsstand. He tucked it into his shoulder bag and returned to his seat. He sat at the gate. The gate was crowded but nothing disturbed him at any point or made him feel as though his bag was touched. He tries to remember who was sitting near him but can only come up with a mish-mash of faces, some of them might have been there and some might be only imagination. He wonders if someone could have put the card there while he was on the plane. He cannot fathom how this could be and he cannot recall any faces from there either. He has played this game roughly nine billion times in six months, he figures.

As the continent of Australia approaches Grady finally puts away his postcard and takes out the file folder that was slid under his door yesterday. He opens the folder to find himself staring into the face of a handsome if ancient man. The hair on top of the head can barely qualify as wispy. The face is lined fiercely but the eyes burn with life and vigor beneath the sagging skin. Casey Libby stares at him with all the knowledge a man attaining the age of one hundred and seven can have behind his eyes. There is a smile on this man’s face. The teeth are noticably false but Grady imagines when you live more than a century you are entitled to have false teeth.

Contrary to Luis Grafton’s file, Casey’s file is a celebration of life mixed with deep tragedy. A man whose life truly began shortly after returning to Australia after World War I is the story that Grady reads. Casey was a man who saw action in the terror and horror that was Gallipoli during World War I. The details are sketchy but Grady has always been a history buff. Growing up in the British Isles he knows the stories of what went on there so long ago. He has often wondered what it would be like to have his abilities when standing at such a slaughterhouse of humanity like that. He shudders to think of the torment. Upon returning Casey set up a successful shipping business. He changed his businesses many times over the years always selling at just the right times and making huge profits.

About the time he turned thirty-five he began building a house. It was a house in the middle of nowhere. It was a house in the middle of the Australian outback. Well, all right, Grady concedes to himself, not quite the middle of the outback but enough to make it seem like an enormous thing surrounded by a lot of nothing.

Casey Libby is a wealthy man. He is known throughout the country as the wild eccentric who built the gigantic house in the desert. He is a bit like Australia’s answer to William Randolph Hearst in America. He is also a bit like Howard Hughes in that he has become reclusive in his remaining years. Grady gathers this is probably due to his ill-health. He lives in the enormous house with is cavernous rooms with just his great-granddaughter and her husband. He sits in a large room in an enormous bed that faces a wall of windows and looks out over the barren landscape and waits to die.

Grady reads this with fascination. He hopes that Casey is feeling alive enough to talk to him for a while. Grady loves history. He finds the past endlessly fascinating and cannot imagine having seen an entire century. He wonders if Casey would be willing to tell him about the war. He also wonders why he was sent to Casey of all people. So many of those he is sent to are obviously sinful. There is a stain about them that he can sense from within the folder. There is nothing about Casey that gives him the slightest shudder.

Eventually Grady puts the folder back. They are still four hours from landing. Once he lands he knows he has a long drive ahead of him. Grady eases his seat back and falls asleep to the steady hum of the airplane’s engines. He dreams of the white postcard and then that dream fades into one where he is a young man ready to take on the world and vanquish the Turks. His dream is interrupted with images of blood and death and the sight of so many of his friends wasted and destroyed.

Beneath him the ocean rolls. The sun arches across the sky. The sun bakes the land that is the Australian outback. The sun bakes the home of Casey Libby. Casey awakens from his sleep and knows that death is approaching him. He can see it move closer to his room each day he looks out his wall of windows. He has been watching it approach for many years now. He intends to welcome it like an old friend. They first met when he was barely out of school. He also knows that someone is coming to see him.

His mind is still amazingly sharp beneath the wrinkled skin. He knows the young man carries a heavy burden with him and that he must add to that. Like most of his life, Casey is filled with excitement at the idea of not only meeting this interesting young man but of the adventure death will provide for him. He hopes that whatever lies past this world he has the young strong body he had when he was eighteen and ready to take on everyone and everything.

Around the house darkness creeps. His great-granddaughter moves from room to room and tries to avoid talking to her husband. Given the size of the house this is not hard. She is trying to straighten and clean the house for their guest. Her husband just wants to drink and then fight. It’s all he ever wants to do anymore.

Sharon Dillon loves her great-grandfather. She always has. She has always been his favorite as well. She wants his last days to be comfortable. She doesn’t want him to go but she knows he seems to actually be looking forward to it. She does not trust this man who is coming into their lives. His arrival seems to indicate that soon the inevitable will come.

Her husband is Jason. He is a big man with dark hair and too much hair across his shoulders and back. He once could say the sweetest things that would make her knees weak and her heart beat three times faster. Over the years the thing inside him that could do that to her seemed to shrivel in the hot sun. Now he just drinks and says horrible things about her great-grandfather. Jason just wants the man to die so he can sell the house.

Sharon heads into the guest room for the nine hundredth time that morning. She straightens things that do not need straightening. She fluffs pillows that do not need fluffing. She worries and she putters and she glances out the window as if the man will fly in on a broomstick and land in the room any moment.

The plane’s wheels touch down and Grady is awake almost instantly. It is a short taxi to the terminal. He grabs his bags and heads down the gangway trying hard not to touch anyone around him as he moves. He prays again that teleportation be invented soon so he doesn’t have to worry so much about crowds.

There is a man in a dark suit holding a card with his name across it at the end of the gangway. Grady merely nods to the man. The man nods back and tells Grady to follow him. Grady can tell even in the airport that it is hot outside. His penchant for wearing black is going to be a liability yet again. He promises himself to buy some lighter clothes while he is here.

They head through the airport and Grady admires the building and the people. He has always wanted to come to Australia. He wishes he had time to sight-see. He also wonders if the organization he works for would mind if he moved down here.

The car is actually a Humvee. Grady climbs into the large machine. The man in the dark suit climbs into the driver’s seat. He says nothing to Grady. He turns on the air-conditioning after starting the engine. They drive into the traffic.

Beyond the airport and beyond the city lies the outback. Civilization drops off dramatically. Grady closes his eyes and senses the pull of the old man. It is very strong from one so fragile. He eases himself into the seat and lets himself rest. There is an unease growing within his stomach that he does not understand.

He moves towards the man in the house as surely as the sun moves across the sky baking the land beneath.

Read on to Chapter 2