Ezra Sable meant to make the Drowned Parish Hall holy ground, a place no monster could cross. But the monster's head above his door had begun to rot. He smelled it from his cot at dusk. He got up, lit a lamp, and stood beneath the sagging timbers to look. The bat's head hung on a silver spike above the front door. He had killed the thing years ago and nailed it there as a warning. Its glowing red eyes had gone dull. Its razor fangs were loose in blackened gums. The stink filled the hall. Flies crawled the water-worn stone around it. Ezra knew the head was more than a warning. The silver held a ward. As long as the flesh stayed whole, the ward stayed strong, and nothing crossed his threshold at night. Now the flesh was failing. He pressed the back of his hand to his nose and studied the loose spike. The ward was slipping. Something could slip in while he slept. A small voice spoke behind him. "You should take it down tonight." He turned. The girl stood in the doorway to the back room, still as a post, her eyes too wide for her thin face. Her white nightgown was muddy at the hem. He had let her sleep in the hall a week now, because she had nowhere else and because she always knew things she shouldn't. Gracie Lund did not point. She only stared past his shoulder at the door. "It's already open," she whispered. "Just a crack. He's on the roof." Ezra's neck went cold. He heard nothing. He trusted her anyway. He crossed to his belt and loaded his sawn-off crossbow with a silver bolt. "Stay low," he told her. He reached up with a hooked pole and knocked the rotting head off the spike. It hit the floor with a wet slap. The moment it fell, a scratching started overhead. Claws dragged across the roof tiles. The ward was gone, and something had felt it go. He kicked the door shut and dropped the bar. A weight struck the timbers above. Dust rained down. Through the tall window he saw wings block the moonlight, red eyes burning in the dark. Another nightwing, mate or kin to the one he'd killed. It hit the window. Glass burst inward. Ezra fired. The silver bolt caught it in the shoulder and it shrieked and pulled back into the night. He heard it climb, then quiet. He stood in the broken glass, breathing hard. Gracie had not moved. "It went away," she said softly. "It will come back with more." Ezra looked at the rotting head on the floor and the empty spike above his door. His ward was ruined. His hall stood open now, unblessed, with a wounded monster loose and no warning left to hang. If he wanted holy ground, he would have to make it before the next dark came.