Tyler quickly strode to the door leading to the hallway, nearly tearing it open in his rush to get out. Once in the hallway he Flitted to Katherine's door, and without even bothering to knock he opened it.
Her bed was empty and still made even if a bit messy as though she had slept on top of the covers rather than under them.
A laptop Tyler had seen her using before laid open on the messy coverlet. Tyler quickly exited the room, storming down the halls as he shouted at the top of his lungs.
"GISELLE!!!
The coven started Flitting out into the hallway, most yawning tiredly with murmured questions of what was going on.
Finally, after what seemed ages Giselle appeared in her white silk robe, hair sticking out wildly and a bemused expression playing across her half-awake features.
"Tyler, what in the world-"
"She's gone, Giselle. Katherine is gone," Tyler blurted out in an unusually panicked manner. "she took my keys, Giselle."
Tyler could see his words register in Giselle's mind as the expression on her face changed from sleepy to wide-eyed fear. Giselle knew that Katherine didn't know how to work a car properly, and even though it was unlikely that she could be hurt in a car accident, if she were injured she would be vulnerable to anyone who crossed her path, human or otherwise.
They could lose her forever.
"Katherine's gone?" Sofia asked, coming up behind Tyler. But... But why? She was happy here. Why Would she leave? She was happy, wasn't she? She seemed happy and-"
"Katherine did not run away, Sofia," Giselle said, cutting off the girl's hysterics. "She was happy here, and even if she had not been she had no place else to go.."
Horror etched itself across Giselle's features as she realized that Katherine did have somewhere else to go to-or more accurately, someone to go to.
Giselle and Tyler exchanged a look they both knew.
Convel.
The name hung heavily in the air as people began to realize the dilemma at hand.
If Katherine had gone to see her father this wouldn't be a simple search for Katherine, it would be a battle for her. Convel wanted her and he was a man who could be counted on to fight the Devil himself to get what he wanted that was a well known fact.
"We do not know that that is where she has gone," Giselle said calmly, homing in on everyone's fears. She turned to Tyler. "You and Sofia go search her room for any sign of where she might have gone. Tracy and Ray, I want you over at the Parker residence. See if they know anything.
Everyone else, search the local area. I am going to try to contact her mentally. I will be in my private study if anyone finds anything."
Without hesitation, Tyler raced back to Katherine's room, Sofia right behind him.
The first thing Tyler's gaze fell on was Katherine's laptop, still lying open on her bed. He quickly sat on the bed and hit the spacebar. The black screen became bright blue and then cleared to show her desktop picture of a forest and several folder-shortcuts.
Tyler double-clicked the internet icon, while Sofia started opening drawers in the bureau. He Scrolled over the history icon and clicked it. His eyes widened when he saw that the last site Katherine had visited had been
MostHauntedPlacesInAustralia.com...
Ghosts and goblins didn't seem like something she would be interested in -then again, he wouldn't have thought that she'd run off to heaven knows where without a word to him about it first not that it wasn't like Katherine to run headfirst into trouble without thinking. Okay, so maybe it was, but still…
With a sigh, Tyler clicked on the link to the website. Immediately a picture of a very familiar lighthouse appeared on the screen.
Oh God... Please, no...
That lighthouse hadn't just been the place where Giselle and Tyler had recruited Ray and Tracy, it was also the place where Giselle saw Convel again after their first parting. It had meaning to Convel and it would just suit his sense of irony to use that as a place to lure Katherine.
"Sofia," Tyler said, his tone stopping the young woman in her hysteric tracks.
"What is it? Have you found anything? D0 you know where she went? Tyler, for heaven's sake say something-"
"I would if you stopped for breath to let me get a word in!" Tyler snapped impatiently. "She's gone to the island just outside of Merytonburg the one with the lighthouse. You know what that means, Sofia."
"She's gone looking for him..." Sofia said softly, voice breathless in fear as she spoke.
If Katherine decided to join Convel, everything they knew would end. Convel's vision of the enslavement of humanity and the rule of all the Clans would soon become a reality and what was even worse-at least for Tyler - was that they would have to fight Katherine.
"We need to tell Giselle," Tyler said swiftly, rising from the bed and quickly Flitting from the room, Sofia right behind him. "If we hurry we might be able to stop Katherine before she does Something.. rash."
They rushed down the third floor hallway to the stairs and took the steps four at a time until they reached the second floor landing. Without even meaning to they started Flitting so fast that things around them started to break, though it séemed ages to them before they reached the door to Giselle's study. Tyler burst through the door, ripping it from its hinges. Giselle had been sitting in her chair, fingers pressed to her temples, concentrating on contacting Katherine. Her head instantly snapped up though when Tyler broke down her door, Soffya faithfully following behind.
Tyler's words rang through the air between them.
"I know where she's gone."