Callyx shrugged. "Well, we can always look around again," he said, uncapping his own water and taking a sip. "Go look around outside, get a feel for the area." He yawned briefly. "Get used to this timezone."

"About twenty minutes," Nika said as she started driving. "I live a little ways away from the closest town, but I don't mind. Gives me more privacy." She glanced over at him. "The little town area is nice. If you need anything, I'd recommend looking there. Once you get into San Diego, it's a little more confusing and busy."

"Well, she basically told us what's upstairs, so let's check the downstairs." Callyx led the way, going from the kitchen into the living room and looking around before he went over to her office, opening the door and looking in. "Well, someone doesn't like to clean much."

"Sure, if you want." Nika glanced over at him again. "I'll take you guys somewhere one of these days." She sped up a little and turned off the highway to start going through the little town.

Callyx shrugged and shut the door again, going over to the next room. The next room was a two-story library, complete with small desks with chairs, lamps, and ladders to get to all the books. "Wow. That's a lot of books."

"That depends, I guess," Nika said with a shrug. "I'm one of five, so I take care of all of North America. South America is usually handled by a guy, Europe and Asia are handled by two girls and a guy, and everything else gets handed off to whoever isn't busy."

Callyx nodded. "I hope so. It looks like she's got some interesting books in here." He took a few steps in, since she had earlier invited them to use the library, and started looking around.

"Not necessarily." Nika was silent as she parked and got out. "The guy that runs South America has gone missing. No one has seen him or heard from him in over three weeks. It's like he just... vanished."

Callyx nodded. "I don't generally read a ton, but I do like to do it on occasion. I certainly think I could find a few books in here that I would like to read." He shook his head a little, astounded at all the books in the personal library.

"Maybe. I don't know." Nika frowned and went inside to get their food, pulling out a credit card and paying with that. "But I do know that his disappearance is a very bad sign."

Callyx nodded. "Yeah, I can understand that," he said with a little smile. "We only have so much time allotted to us, right?"

Shaking his head a little, he moved out of the library, not wanting to think about his mortality any more than he had to. "Well, I think I'm going to go explore the rest of the house. Would you like to come with me or stay here?"

"It means that there's something out there that's stronger than one of us Hunters," Nika said softly, getting in the car and handing the food to him to hold. "We are trained to know how to deal with these things, to know how to handle ourselves. There are only a few things that can overpower us. Gods, naturally. Some creatures require a few of us to take one down."

Frowning deeply, Nika started driving. "What really bothers me is that he just... disappeared. No body, no trail, nothing. Like he just... vanished."

Callyx nodded and left the library, heading around to the rest of the downstairs. The den, nestled in the back of the house, had a bay window seat, along with several other small stained glass windows, a TV, a few beanbag chairs and comfortable loungers, and some books and magazines and things.

"This looks pretty normal, actually," Callyx said, looking around. "You know?"

"Ares sent one of the European girls to go check it out," Nika said, keeping her eyes on the road as she drove. "She's been checking in regularly, so far. But her reports are not encouraging. Like I said, there's no trail, no trace of what happened."

Callyx laughed a little. "This is true," he agreed. "Well, you never know, with people." He shrugged and headed for the back door. He'd seen a building outside that he wanted to investigate.

"It is a possibility," Nika said carefully. "But if she can't find anything, I doubt we can. I don't know what he has planned for us. We may end up going to South America; we may not. We may end up going somewhere else. I just don't know."

"Not really," Callyx said with a grin. "My house is pretty ordinary. Smaller than this, and more cluttered and decorated, but ordinary. What about yours? Same?"

He headed across the back lawn to the building, which looked like a barn. He paused at the door, glancing back at Althea.

"Life is dangerous," Nika said with a negligent shrug. "But yes, we are in more danger when we do not know what happened to him. We'll probably end up working on that problem, eventually."

Callyx chuckled. "Well, with her, you never know." He opened the door and stepped inside, looking around. "Wow. Look at this place. I don't think it's normal for people to have a training dojo in their yards."

Nika nodded. "I know. That's why it's all already been investigated thoroughly. We don't know what happened even still." Sighing, she parked in front of her house again. "No use speculating. Just clouds the mind."

"I guess so." Callyx looked around, deciding against going farther inside. The place had the feeling of a place well loved and tended, with much time spent in it, not like the rest of the house. "I think I heard a car," he said after a moment.

Nika sighed and got out of the car, heading inside. She'd tried explaining it to him the best she knew how, but he just didn't quite seem to understand what she was saying. She set out the food carefully, opening each container. She wouldn't try to explain it any more to him; better for her nerves and her temper if she just didn't speak any more. People never seemed to understand her anyway.

Callyx nodded and followed her inside, shutting the door to the sparring hall behind him. He headed inside again, glancing around briefly before following the noise of ruffling bags towards the dining room.

Nika put the food out on the table so they could all get their own. Then she got a few glasses out, pouring herself a cup of soda, getting another filled with water, and waiting on the last two to see what the males wanted to drink.

[[It's all good. I've been pretty busy myself, so I know exactly how that goes. ^^]]

A few days later, Nika was standing in the living room with Ares, looking perplexed. They were both poring over a world map that had a few pictures attached to it, and Nika sighed.

"Shall I go get the others?" she asked, glancing at her patron god.

Ares nodded. "Might as well," he said, glancing at her. "Now is as good a time as any to explain to them."

Nika nodded and went to go collect her guests, still frowning.

Callyx was outside, sitting in the grass and absently manipulating water. He looked up when he heard the door open and got up when Nika yelled to him that he needed to come in.

Brushing his pants off, he headed inside, stopping for a moment when he saw Ares. Then he continued inside, glancing around to see if the others were there yet.