“Glory O’Bryan, what’s wrong?”
I turned around to see Horst standing just inside the doorway leading to the café, casually posed like the hero on the front of a romance novel—arms crossed over a dark green T-shirt that did ridiculous things to his tawny skin and golden eyes, one knee bent, one foot slightly in front of the other, head thrown back as he took in the ransacked room.
And it all hit me at once—all the little “hiccups” that had added up to this looming disaster.
The words tumbled out. “My princess puked on my sidewalk and it turns out I’m wearing a sex apron and all the rats got out and any minute now the cats are going to find them and eat them in front of a bunch of little girls who love animals.”
His arms dropped to his sides, and he cocked his head. “A sex apron?” he said. “Aren’t all aprons sex aprons?”
Of all the things I’d expected him to say in response to me pouring out my plight... “What?”
He rubbed one hand over the back of his neck. “I just mean that all aprons are”—he looked around as if to ensure we were alone—“crotchless. You know?”
“Crotchless?” I felt like I’d been struck dumb. Literally just struck dumb.
“Yeah.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “I’m just saying that it’s an apron, and it doesn’t cover...” He trailed off, clearing his throat. “But I can see from the look on your face that I’m focused on the wrong part of what you just said.”
“You definitely are.”
“What part would you like me to focus on instead?”
“How about the part where I have fifteen rats running loose in a cat café full of kids?”
“Right. Got it.” He clapped his hands together softly. “How can I help?”
“Unless you have some magical way of corralling rats...” I caught a glimpse of the pipes in his shirt pocket and blinked. “Horst. You’re the Pied Piper.”
He shot me a cocky grin. “That’s what it says on my business cards.”
I bounced on the balls of my feet, barely able to contain the relief that rushed through me. “You can play your pipes and get all the rats to go back in their cage.”
He took a step back. “What? No, I don’t work with rats. That was an ancestor of mine. And look at the trouble it got us into.” With that Oomy popped her lizardy head out of his shirt pocket and gave a huge kobold sigh of agreement.
“But you could do it, right?”
The mask fell away, revealing a far more serious Horst than I’d ever seen before. “I have no idea. I’ve only ever played for the kobolds. Rats...I don’t even know where I would start. A different key. Different melody. It’s not something I can just do on the fly.”
I stepped forward and took his hands in mine. “Please, I’m desperate. You would be doing me a huge favor.”
His eyes lit up, and he tipped his head forward. “A favor, huh?”
What was it with fairies and that word? I had to remember how persuasive it was.
“Yes. And maybe you don’t know how to do it yet, but I’m sure you can figure it out. I believe in you.” I squeezed his fingers. “Fairy dust, remember?”
“Well.” Horst rocked back on his heels as he considered. He glanced around at the wreck of a room behind me and sighed. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do. But I might not be able to figure it out. At least,” he added, “not before the cats realize there are rats on the loose.”
I released his hands and stepped back, suppressing the images that flooded my brain every time I thought of the cats and the rats in the same room. “Thank you.”
Horst pulled out his pipes, Oomy climbing up to settle in the space where his neck and shoulder met. He stared down at the instrument and blew out a long breath before raising it to his lips.
While he fiddled around with a few notes, I headed back to the room where the kids were still eagerly offering the cats treats. I couldn’t imagine the rats were hiding back here, but if they were and Horst managed to lure them out, I wanted to be able to do something before the cats noticed what was going on.
What that something was, I didn’t know, but I had to be there to try.
And a few moments later, as the first strains of a melody reached us, I was very glad I was. Because as the notes floated into the room, the girls—all eight of them—froze, their heads swiveling toward the front room, their eyes glazed over.
Oh.
