Burt toyed with asking himself the obvious questions -- "What's happening to me?" "Am I sick?" "Is a demon trying to posess me?" -- but he hated clichés even more than he hated the gross ethnic stereotyping of those goddamned Tweety cartoons.

Besides, the strange feeling in his gizzard was beginning to spread to his crop, and its tingly warmth was growing so strong and insistent that Burt found it tough to think at all.

"Oh, God," he said. "Oh, God. I think I'm going to... Oh, God."

Then it happened. At the top of his neck, on the small, sparsely-feathered patch just below his beak, a seam began to open up. It didn't hurt, and it didn't bleed, but it scared the hell out of Burt all the same.