Chapter 19 Inga
INGA
Inga was quiet on the walk down from Mace and Thea’s, seeing Mace’s transformation over and over again in her mind.
She had grown up with the rumors that she half believed, about the town and the gargoyles.
Now the rumors had become reality in front of her.
Suddenly, a whole world of other possibilities seemed to open up before her.
Rogue nudged against her leg. She reached down and buried her fingers in his thick fur.
“Not that way,” she said to Luke, who had turned toward the road down to the harbor when they reached the parking lot. “I want to go see Tor and Bernie first.”
“Your brother and his wife?” Luke came willingly. He seemed in a more cheerful mood since they had met with Mace and Thea. Perhaps he, too, was seeing more possibilities in the world than he had before. “Not that I mind meeting them, but why?”
“Well, for one thing I just want to let them know I’m back, if they haven’t heard already. But I’m quite serious about asking Tor to take a look at the ship if he can.”
Luke shook his head. “I really don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“They’re not just going to give up and go away if we ignore them.” She still had one hand resting lightly on Rogue’s ruff. With her other one, she reached out and took his hand. “I think it’s time to stop running and take the fight to them.”
The walk to the lighthouse by the road was long and circuitous, as the main road curved away from the coast, and then a side road went out to the lighthouse on the point.
There were various walking paths crisscrossing the hill above the town, and Inga took one of those, a steep scramble in places that took them to the lighthouse in a fraction of the time that following the road would have.
Inga could see why Bernie didn’t want to do this when she was eight months pregnant.
The sunny weather held for their walk, though rain clouds were now heavily threatening, rolling in from the sea. The dark backdrop of ominous weather with the sunlight brightening the lighthouse struck her as almost impossibly beautiful. There was even a hint of a rainbow.
Inga had always liked the lighthouse, even before Bernie, and later Tor, had moved into it. Although long outdated and no longer in service, it was painted the classic white and red, with a smart little white lightkeeper’s house next to it.
Rogue bounded ahead of them as they approached.
Inga whistled to him, remembering that Tor and Bernie had a cat that might be around somewhere.
Considering what Tor and Bernie’s cat was like, she was more worried about the dog than the cat.
However, there was no hissing or yowling, no streak of infuriated dignity zipping across the lawn.
Rogue paused to sniff at the tires of Tor’s car in the gravel parking area.
“Hello there!” Inga called. “Who’s up for company?”
“Hey, sis!” Tor burst out the front door of the lightkeeper’s house. There was paint smeared on his face and jeans. “Heard you and Dad had a guest! You must be Luke.”
“I forgot that it’s impossible to have secrets in this town,” Inga groaned. “Whoa!” She waved him off. “You look like you lost a fight with a paint roller.”
“Uh, right.” He looked down at himself as if he had just noticed. “We’re working on the baby’s room. Actually, I’m working on the baby’s room because Bernie’s supposed to stay away from the paint fumes.”
“Hi!” Bernie called from the doorway, waving with a hand holding a roll of masking tape. “We were just about to break for lunch. Are you hungry?”
Inga actually wasn’t that hungry after being plied with Mace and Thea’s pastries, but if there was one thing shifters could always do, it was eat. “Sure. Luke, this is my brother Tor.”
Tor shook Luke’s hand, then slapped Inga on the back. “Heard you lost the Dingboat.”
“Wonderful, my life is complete,” Inga moaned. “Yes, I did the thing we’ve always known not to do since we were little kids. In my defense, it wasn’t my knots. I tied it to a bush that pulled out by the roots.”
“Excuses, excuses,” Tor declared cheerfully, ruffling her hair, which she tried and failed to avoid. “Come on in and eat, if you can manage to find the house without losing that too.”
“I hate you so much.”
Bernie, still groaningly pregnant, greeted them at the door with the suggestion that they eat outside while the weather was nice enough. Inga followed Tor into the kitchen, and they divided an entire picnic’s worth of sandwich supplies between the two of them. The fridge was stuffed.
“I don’t know, I’m not sure if you have enough food,” Inga asked wryly, trying to pull out a package of cheese without causing an avalanche. “I think I see a tiny empty corner there with nothing in it.”
“Bernie and the cub aren’t going to run out of food on my watch.”
Out the kitchen window, Inga saw that Luke was helping Bernie move a white patio table and chairs out to the lawn. Rogue sniffed around, poking his nose into holes in the crumbled stone wall along the edge of the garden, probably smelling cat.
“So, this Luke guy,” Tor said in an incredibly unconvincing casual tone.
“Uh huh, be more subtle. Are we taking this pie?”
“The cherry one or the apple one? Just pick whichever looks better. Bernie likes both.”
“Seriously, Tor, are you feeding a pregnant woman or a college hockey team?”
“They eat about the same. The plates are over there. And you know I know it’s none of my business, Inga,” Tor added, as Inga carefully balanced a stack of plates with the pie on top. “You’re a grown woman, not a little girl. You can have boyfriends if you want.”
“Funny how people keep making it their business anyway.”
Tor shot his gaze sideways out the window and lowered his voice. “Is he your—”
“I don’t know! I don’t know, okay? Dad asked me the same. Whatever it is that made you and Eren so positive about your mates, whatever mate-dar we’re supposed to have, doesn’t seem to be working for me. I’m not sure why.”
Hands too full to do anything else, Tor nudged her with his shoulder. “Humans figure it out somehow, right? It must work for them.”
They had a pleasant lunch of sandwiches and pie. Inga ate lightly after their midmorning pastry snack, but she enjoyed watching Luke warm up to Bernie and Tor. He seemed to get along well with all of her family.
“So how’d you two meet?” Bernie asked.
Inga started to tell the same story she’d told their dad and Nita, of meeting Luke while he was hiking.
Then she hesitated and looked at him. Inga didn’t know if there was a shifter-related explanation for the almost telepathic sense that they were thinking the same thing, or if it was just the kind of thing that happened when two people knew each other well.
But Luke gave her a little smile and said, “She helped me out when I really needed it. She found me on the shore, unconscious.”
Then he went ahead and told them a short version of what had happened to him, similar to the way he had related it to Mace. By now he seemed to be getting a little more comfortable talking about it. Tor and Bernie were riveted and sympathetic.
“Are these the same people that Eren had to deal with?” Bernie asked Tor quietly.
“It seems likely.” Tor scowled thunderously. “We all thought they weren’t a problem anymore. That’s the helicopter that’s been flying around, eh?”
“We think so,” Inga said. She pointed out to sea, where the ship was just visible, with the backdrop of dark clouds rolling up behind it. “We’re guessing that’s their base of operations. How long has it been there?”
“Just a couple of days,” Tor said. “What I heard around town is that it’s a marine research ship of some sort. I hadn’t thought too much about it. Figured they were studying whales out there or whatever.”
“Honestly,” Inga said, “one reason why we came over was because I was hoping either you or Eren and Lucy, if they’re expected back soon, would be able to run out there and look at it up close, just to figure out what we’re dealing with.”
“Oh hell yeah, we can do it right now,” Tor said. He pushed back his plate, empty but for a few crumbs. “In fact, if we’re going to do it, we’d better do it now, before that storm gets here.”
“Now wait,” Luke protested. “Inga said she was going to ask you, and I can’t stop either of you, but I need you both to understand that these people are ruthless. I don’t want anyone in danger because of me, and if you get on their radar, you may very well be a target.”
“From what you’ve said, they need to be stopped,” Bernie said. She reached across the table to squeeze Tor’s hand. “Go get ‘em, sweetheart.”
“Go look at them,” Inga emphasized. “I don’t want anyone in danger either.”
They borrowed rain slickers, Inga wearing one of Bernie’s, and Luke tucking himself into a floppy blue poncho belonging to Tor. The clouds were now obscuring the sun, and Inga hoped they weren’t making a mistake by heading out with the storm so close.
She figured it would work to their advantage, though. The weather would make it more difficult for the helicopter to take off, and if they were hard to see, all the better. The ideal situation was that the people on the ship, whoever they were, would have no idea they were being spied on.
Tor strode briskly to the top of the headland and vanished over the edge. Luke made a small, choked sound.
“It’s fine, there’s a ladder,” Inga reassured him. She looked down the steep flights of ladder rungs leading to the all too tiny dock far belong them. Tor was already halfway down. “I hate this part,” she muttered under her breath.
As they began climbing down, first Inga and then Luke, a loud, plaintive bark echoed from above them. They both looked up. Rogue was dancing anxiously at the top of the cliff.
“He can’t climb down the ladder,” Luke said over his shoulder to Inga.
“It’s probably better if he doesn’t. Bernie!” she called up. “Mind watching the dog for us?”
“On it!” Bernie called.