Enjoy another snippet from the book:
Suddenly, the bird stopped whistling and struggled to speak making sounds as if a hairball had been caught in the back of its throat: "Aack…aack…aack, aack…!!"
Leo stepped back from the mortuary table and looked at the bird who was hacking uncontrollably.
"What's going on here, fella?" he asked the parrot and pointed toward the opened door of the room. "Shadow, go upstairs if you're hungry." The parrot did not respond. Leo shrugged his shoulders and tried to explain: "Your dish is full, and I just changed your water a little while ago. So go. Scat!"
"C'mon what's up, fella?" Leo lightly guided his hand along the back of Shadow's head and neck to comfort the bird. "Is something wrong?"
Shadow jerked his head and tilted it at an angle to stare back at Leo. The bird twitched its feathers and opened its left wing slowly which began to shake. The trembling of the red-tipped wing grew in intensity as the hacking loudened. Leo stood motionless in front of his spasming pet, all the while knowing that there was nothing he could do to help. He simply watched in awe at what was the start of an unfathomable transformation. It was a sight he had witnessed so many times before.
Shadow rested on his side, head cowering beneath his opened wing to shield himself from the bright flourescent overhead lighting. Leo reached out to pet the bird, but his hand was met by a pale diaphanous aura rising from the corpse, which blanketed his quivering pet. He saw the hue evolve slowly from a buttery yellow glow to a blinding white brilliance that radiated throughout the preparation room.
What Leo witnessed next was a deliberate and complete metamorphosis. The dull gray feathers on his parrot ripened into beautiful, fresh ivory-colored plumes. Then the bird stopped shaking. The aura receded, and Shadow faded back into his normal gray-and-red coloring.
Leo felt relieved knowing that all Shadow's worrisome spasms had completely subsided. Shadow had also regained his normal composure and then flew to his birdcage across the room.
However, Leo was distinctly aware and somewhat troubled about another movement on the mortuary table—the cadaver of inmate number 19042666134. Adrian Blackmore was no longer dead. This, too, was something he had witnessed many times before.
