Gregory frowned at the note attached to the bird’s cage. He shook his head and screwed his eyes shut. He opened them again.

The note remained the same.

Gregory looked around, even though he was the only person in the shop. He hoped — a fool’s hope — that Barbara hadn’t left at the end of her shift three-quarters of an hour ago. But, of course, she had.

The man who’d dropped it off — it, that was the word he used, not he or she — had been rather strange. But, hey, who was he to judge? He was a 43-year-old man who co-ran a bird daycare shop with a stranger he’d met over the internet. Well, she wasn’t a stranger any more. But she had been when they’d decided to go for it and opened up Im-Peck-Able three years ago. Bird enthusiasts, the pair of them. “Bird nuts,” she’d said when they first began to chat on the forums of Stork Raven Mad: The Bird Lovers’ Haven! How that’d cracked him up.

Well over seven-foot-tall — he towered above the shop’s Christmas tree — with a beard down to his bellybutton. Or, at least, where Gregory assumed his bellybutton was. Given the man’s oddness, it wouldn’t shock him to discover he had no such thing. Grey spots shone in the black bushes. His hair fountained up and away from his skull and down the back of the monk’s robes he wore. The robes in question were dirty grey as if he’d never washed them in however long they’d been in use. An honest-to-goodness rope — about an inch in diameter, ends frayed — tied the robes off at the waist.

On his oversized feet were a pair of Roman sandals. Beneath the brown straps, the man’s feet glittered gold. For a moment, Gregory thought he’d painted them — perhaps with spray paint — for reasons he couldn’t explain. And then he realised they were socks. Gold socks. But still, socks with sandals. Gregory wrinkled his nose. A fashion faux pas.

His eyes sparkled, two black coals wedged into the dough. And he smiled, crooked discoloured teeth on display. The man’s odour was something pungent. The hours spent in bird daycare had somewhat dulled Greg’s nose to offensive aromas. But to be able to smell him over the perfume of bird droppings was quite impressive, all the same.

“I’ve heard you look after birds.”

The sentence caught Greg off-guard. It was almost an accusation — of something sinister. And he rolled his ‘R’s. Which would have made sense if he had a Scottish accent. But he didn’t.

“I—” Gregory blinked a few times. He caught himself. He gave this man, this knockoff Rasputin, a smile. “Why, yes, we do. Here at Im-Peck-Able, our bird daycare is impecc—”

The man waved him away before he could finish his sales spiel. “Wonderful.” He plonked a birdcage, enshrouded in a blanket, onto the counter. Gregory cringed at the haphazard manner in which he did this. The metal clinked against the surface. “I gotta leave little Xavier here, whilst Daddy visits family abroad.”

It took Gregory a second to understand that he spoke in the third person to the bird, and not to Gregory. He didn’t think he’d be able to call this man ‘Daddy’. “Oh, er, right you are!” He began to lift the blanket from the cage.

The man’s hand — nails dirty and black — closed over Gregory’s. He did his best to not recoil. “Ey! Don’t do that! It’s sleeping!” said Rasputin, in a voice that was a few decibels short of a yell.

“Oh.” Greg pried his hand away and wiped it on his trousers. “I’m sorry. Is it a nocturnal bird?”

Rasputin shrugged. “Nah. Just lazy.”

Gregory nodded. “Hmm.”

A few moments ticked by between them. Nearby, something squawked. Out of the corner of his eye, a parakeet ruffled its feathers. Their eyes remained locked.

Gregory looked down and away. He cleared his throat. “So, what kinda bird is it?”

The man sniffed. “Don’t rightly know. But I’ve left a card with all of its requirements. Quite a fussy bugger, it is. If you don’t mind—” he hooked a thumb over his shoulder “—I’ve got a magic carpet to catch.” He flashed his off-colour teeth again.

Greg couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not. He offered a polite smile. “I understand, Mr…?”

“Dewin.” He tipped an imaginary hat. “Do I pay now, or?”

“When you pick little, er, Xavier up.”

“Perfect.” He shot Greg finger pistols and gave him a wink.

The sooner this Mr Dewin left the shop the better. “And how long do you anticipate it’ll be?”

Dewin was halfway to the door. He scratched the back of his head. “Dunno, really. A decade tops.” He raised his hand and waved. “Cheerio! And a merry Saturnalia!”

With that, he was gone. He disappeared through the shop door and the bell tinkled overhead. In a fluttered heartbeat, he was out of sight.

Greg rubbed his chin and stared and the covered cage.

* * *

So, here Greg was.

He’d waited until the late afternoon sky began to darken before he lifted the blanket from Xavier’s cage. He took his time and took the cover away in a gradual process. Greg managed to remove the cover without shaking the cage too much. The bird didn’t make a sound. In the back of his mind, the possibility that the madman had dumped a dead bird on his hands began to crawl.

And then he saw the creature.

He dropped the blanket and took a step back.

The bird watched him. Its eyes followed his movements. It neither ruffled its feathers nor issued a cry. It sat there on its perch — marble, to Greg’s eyes — and measured him up.

Its feathers were a mixture of autumnal colours. Red at the base, which bled into orange and ended in yellow. The tips were a vibrant ink-blue, the blue of a white-hot flame. The beak was blood red, the crimson of a Valentine’s Day card. Its eyes were two black marbles, through which a fire glowed and smoked flowed.

“What the bloody hell…?”

The bird continued to size him up. Its expression was unreadable. Impossible to tell whether it despised him or was grateful for having its cover removed. Greg stared at the bird.

“What are you?”

In response, Xavier shuffled on his perch — marble, he was sure.

And that was all.

“Who’s a pretty boy?” Greg asked.

The bird tilted its head to one side. It didn’t jerk its head like normal birds. It twisted in slow motion. The movement was almost human.

Greg sighed. He pulled the envelope wedged between the bars. He did so in a quick jab. The bird might try to nip him or claw him. You had to be ready for anything, in the bird daycare business.

It was an old brown thing, the sort you might see in a fifties detective movie. Sealed with wax. The symbol was a cross within a square within a triangle. An orb encircled the uppermost peak of the triangle. Gregory puffed air through his nose and barked a humourless chuckle. He ripped the envelope open.

Inside was a single sheaf of paper. Greg slipped it out. On it, in a ridiculous, ornate scrawl, was a single sentence. Well, it wasn’t even a sentence. It had no full-stop at the end. The lazy bugger didn’t even put that much effort in.

Greg read it once. Twice. Thrice. He flipped the page over, to check that the back was blank.

It was.

He returned to the six words. Seven if you count contractions.

Don’t panic if I catch fire

“Don’t panic if you catch fire?” Greg glanced from note to bird, back to note. He blinked and scrunched his eyes shut and looked away. He looked back and held the note up to his face as if it might change up close. “What the bloody hell does that mean?” Gregory lowered the note and raised his eyes at the fiery bird. “Have a habit of catching fire, do you?”

Xavier tilted its head in the other direction. Gregory got a distinct impression that it would have blinked, had it the capability to do so. He sighed. “Guess I better figure out what you like to eat, huh?”

* * *

Dewin had been right. Xavier was a fussy bugger. Pelleted bird food. Green beans. Carrots. Peas in pods. Peas out of pods. Cabbage. Cauliflower. Sweetcorn. Sweet potato. He even gave mushrooms, onions, and garlic a go — despite many of his previous birds hating the stuff.

All of which Xavier turned his nose up at. Or, rather, turned his beak up at.

“What do you want?” Gregory groaned and looked up at the clock. It was almost 9 p.m. He should have been home — at the very least — two-and-a-half hours ago. “Ahh, forget about it.” He stuck a cigarette in his mouth. “You can go hungry for tonight, you miserable git.”

Greg lit up his carcinogenic little friend before he left the shop. If Barb had been there, he’d have had it in the neck. But she wasn’t, and he’d struggled for the better part of half a day with an odd bird from an odd man. So screw it. He needed his nicotine fix.

He clicked his lighter a few times before it sparked. An old Bic that was almost empty. The small flame popped into existence and Greg brought it to the end of his cigarette and inhaled. And then he coughed.

Xavier had pressed itself up against the bars of his cage, a prisoner against the door of the cell. Its gaze fixated on the flame, the glow of the orange reflected in its coal-black eyes.

Greg froze, eyes locked with the bird. The heat beneath his thumb intensified and he extinguished the flame with a short curse. When the flame died, Xavier deflated and took a step back. The sparkle in its eyes dimmed.

Greg inhaled and pulled the cigarette from his mouth. He blew out a cloud of smoke. Upon seeing the orange glow and the exhaled haze, the bird perked up again. It shuffled closer to the cage on his marble perch. Greg — movements slow — waved the lit cigarette back and forth. Xavier followed the stick with gradual rotations of its head.

He leant forward with the cigarette in hand before he stopped himself. Could he give a bird a smoke? Would that be animal cruelty? Even if the animal wanted the cancer stick?

Before Greg could think, Xavier’s darted its head through the bars. The cigarette was gone from Greg’s hands in an instant. The bird gobbled it up with several jerked neck movements. Xavier loosed a cheerful squawk and fluttered its wings. It clacked its claws against its perch.

To please both his curiosity and the bird’s hunger, Greg pulled out another smoke. At the sight of it, Xavier issued another squeal and fluttered its feathers. When he brought the lighter to the cigarette, the bird crammed against the bars and squalled. In slow motion, Greg spun the metal wheel and the tiny fire squeezed into life. Xavier cried — a sound of pure ecstasy — and tried to push itself through the bars like playdough. Greg extinguished the flame, much to the bird’s chagrin. He steadied the bird with his hand. “Yeah, yeah, all right. Steady on, chap. You can have it, don’t break your neck in the process.”

Greg glanced around, to make sure he had the shop to himself. He did. Like a furtive criminal, he lit the cigarette and shoved it through the bars. Xavier all but ripped it from his fingers. If Greg hadn’t let go when he did, he’d have lost a bit of skin in the process.

Gregory shook his head to clear his thoughts. He straightened back up. “Right then.” He raised an eyebrow and thought about this. He pointed a finger at the bird, who seemed somewhat disappointed it wasn’t another cigarette. “You like it hot. But maybe no more ciggies, yeah? Dewin might not like it if you become a chain smoker with a 60-a-day cough.”

* * *

Over the next few days, Greg fed Xavier an assortment of burnt offerings. He’d tried to feed the bird roasted nuts and berries — actual food — but these the bird had declined. It seemed it was only interested in non-food items. Burnt beyond recognition.

Several cigarettes — more than he’d promised, and more than he should have given the bird. A few charred candle wicks. A couple of lumps of coal, which the bird gnawed and sharpened its beak against. Small pieces of paper, the edges blackened and curled against a flame. A handful of crispy woodchips. The scrapings from the oven tray — after half an hour of grunting and struggling. The crumbs from inside the toaster.

All of this he hid from Barbara. She’d either think him insane or cruel. Or both. She’d grumbled a few times about how the strange bird wouldn’t take any of the feed she’d given it. Greg kept his mouth shut. It was too weird to try to rope her in, too. No, better cater the feathery freak’s odd diet and then get rid of the bugger as soon as Dewin showed his fuzzy face again.

The bird gobbled up the oddities Gregory shoved through its bars. All except for the paper and woodchips. It didn’t reject these items — it took them willing enough — but it didn’t consume them as it did the rest. It stacked them into a pile in the far corner of its cage. After the first few times, Greg stopped giving them altogether, but the bird became grumpy. So, he resumed. In the corner of the cage, the odd paper mache egg grew and grew.

There was something else, too. The bird produced no waste. Nothing at all, not even a few droppings. It ate and it ate. And build its nest, next to its pretty marble perch. Greg tried to Google the species of bird but came up short. None of the pictures and none of the descriptions matched what he had. His search of ‘bird that eats fire’ returned the curious case of a species called Rufous treepies. Native to Southeast Asia. But it looked nothing like Xavier, so that couldn’t be it.

* * *

Barb rushed out to the car when he arrived for the start of his shift. She left the shop open and unattended, which was a no-no. She took him by the hand and said, “You’ve got to see this.”

Greg’s stomach dropped at her tone of voice. Something in it told him it would be a very bleak January indeed. And his New Year’s hangover wasn’t helping.

Xavier had encased itself in a cocoon of paper and woodchips. Only its feet were visible. They stuck out of the odd egg, motionless.

“What the bloody hell’s it doing?” whispered Barb.

Greg shook his head and motioned for her to stay back.

He inched towards the cage, closer and closer. All the other birds in the shop were silent — unusual for them. Nothing stirred. No wings fluttered. Nothing called or cried. All was still.

Nearer and nearer Greg edged. He took tiny steps. He couldn’t breathe. And not just because of all the cigarettes.

He tapped the cage with a nail. “Hey.”

Nothing.

Greg tapped again. “Hey. Xavier.”

Motionless.

Gregory grunted and rapped his knuckles against the metal. “Hey, wake u—”

The nest — with the bird tucked away inside — burst into flames.

“Jesus Christ!” Greg leapt back and covered his head. Behind him, Barb screamed. All the birds in the shop — those not engulfed in fire — shrieked and squawked. They fluttered their wings and banged against the sides of their cages. “Get them out of here!” Greg told her. “The birds! We need to protect the birds!”

Together, they grabbed cage after cage. They dumped the disgruntled avians on the pavement outside the shop. Wonky towers of creatures leaned this way and that. They shivered in the cold and huddled together, despite the metal that separated them.

By the time the firemen got there, the glow from within Im-Peck-Able had died down. They went into the shop and came back out, faces a rictus of confusion.

The chief hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “‘S’all fine in there. You say the bird was on fire?”

Greg nodded.

“‘Cos he looks bloody fine now. All chipper ’n’ everything. Next time, mate—” he gestured at the animals on the floor “—don’t annoy your pets for the sake of a prank. C’mon lads.”

Greg ran into the shop to verify the chief’s words. He hadn’t lied. There was Xavier. Younger and more beautiful than ever. “Impossible,” he said. The word came out of him, winded as if punched in the belly.

The firemen filed away, back to the fire engine whose lights still flashed. The men grumbled all the while and cast dirty looks at Greg and Barb and the birds. In the chaos of it all, one figure loomed at the back. Seven feet tall.

“You?” The word dripped more venom than Greg had intended. “I thought you said a decade!”

Dewin raised a finger. “Actually, I said a decade tops.” He glanced at his wrist. There was no watch. “And, by my estimations, it’s been ten days. I’m no mathematician, but ten days is marginally shorter than a decade.”

He had Greg there. Greg pursued an alternate line of attack. “Our shop was on fire!”

Dewin looked at the fire engines and the brigade, clad in helmets and uniforms.

“I told you not to panic. Haven’t you ever cared for a phoenix before?”