Tooth and Claw (Templar Chronicles #1.75)

ELEVEN HUNDRED SOULS. VANISHING WITHOUT A TRACE. AND THE MONSTERS RESPONSIBLE SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO THINK.

Gales Ferry, New Hampshire. Population: 1,100...500...175...0.

The 911 call starts like any other emergency—a terrified woman, something outside her house, doors locked.

Then comes the scream.

Then comes the chewing.

By the time Knight Commander Cade Williams and the Echo Team arrive, the quaint retirement village is a ghost town. Dinner plates sit abandoned with still-warm meals. Blood trails lead to nothing. No bodies. No survivors. Just an eerie silence broken only by the wind through empty streets.

SOMETHING IS WRONG BENEATH THE SURFACE

The Templars discover the awful truth: Gales Ferry has been breached from below. What emerges from the darkness shouldn't exist—creatures that hunt in coordinated pairs, execute tactical ambushes, and demonstrate intelligence that violates everything Williams knows about the undead. These aren't mindless monsters. They're organized. Strategic.

And they're still down there.

Ghouls—undead flesh-eaters animated by necromantic magic—have tunneled through bedrock and concrete, dragging paralyzed victims into subterranean passages. But ghouls don't think. They don't plan. They don't coordinate attacks like trained operatives.

Someone has done something to these creatures. Something unprecedented that transforms them from savage predators into something far more dangerous.

DESCENT INTO DARKNESS

Commander Williams has faced demons, revenants, and necromantic abominations across two decades of supernatural warfare. But fighting an enemy in pitch-black tunnels where a single scratch means instant paralysis—where firearms barely slow them down and creatures burst through walls with inhuman strength—this is a new kind of hell.

The Echo Team, armed with Vatican-blessed swords and infrared technology, descends into the labyrinth. What begins as rescue becomes a desperate running battle through collapsing tunnels as wave after wave of silent predators swarm from all directions. Williams and his men adapt on the fly, using IR beacons, tactical cave-ins, and blessed weapons against an enemy that anticipates their every move.

The mission costs them: four men missing, six casualties, and discoveries in the darkness that raise terrifying questions about who created these things—and why.

ENEMY ABOVE, ENEMY BELOW

As Echo Team fights for survival underground, the threat isn't just the monsters. Preceptor Johannson, the Templars' new commanding officer and political climber with no combat experience, demands they abort immediately. No investigation. No follow-up. No answers.

Williams has spent two decades fighting supernatural evil without flinching—but navigating Vatican bureaucracy and a superior officer who seems more interested in containment than truth may prove even more dangerous.

Something larger is happening in Gales Ferry. Something that connects organized ghouls to classified facilities and bureaucratic cover-ups. Williams suspects they've only scratched the surface of a conspiracy that goes deeper than any tunnel system.

MISSION-DRIVEN HORROR WITH REAL CONSEQUENCES

Tooth and Claw delivers relentless military action wrapped in supernatural terror. Williams and his team fight to uncover the truth behind an enemy that shouldn't exist, save civilians still alive in the darkness, and recover brothers-in-arms taken by the creatures.

Features:

• **Tactical supernatural combat** - Templars using swords, submachine guns, and infrared technology against enemies that hunt in formation

• **Claustrophobic horror** - Underground battles where one wrong move means paralysis and death

• **Military authenticity** - OODA loops, suppressive fire, operational discretion, and friction between field commanders and desk officers

• **Character development** - Williams navigating his "Heretic" reputation, managing new team member Duncan, butting heads with an incompetent superior

• **Series mythology expansion** - Unprecedented ghoul behavior suggests a new threat beyond the defeated Council of Nine

• **Escalating mystery** - Each discovery raises new questions about who created these creatures and why

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING:

"The tunnel combat scenes are suffocating in the best way. You can feel the weight of the earth above and the monsters closing in."

"Williams is Jack Reacher meets Constantine. Military competence meets supernatural knowledge."

"The silent ghouls are terrifying. No roaring, no screaming—just the clicking of claws and digging through stone."

PERFECT FOR FANS OF:
Supernatural thrillers (Larry Correia's Monster Hunter International, Jim Butcher's Dresden Files) • Tactical horror with real military procedure • Vatican warrior fiction • Underground horror and claustrophobic action • Conspiracy thrillers with occult elements

Tooth and Claw is the third of a series of novellas that accompany New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Joseph Nassise's runaway hit series, the Templar Chronicles, loved by more than 1,000,000 fans of urban fantasy and supernatural thrillers in 46 countries and 7 languages worldwide. Perfect for fans of Jim Butcher (Harry Dresden), Ilona Andrews (Kate Daniels), Faith Hunter (Jane Yellowrock), and Shayne Silvers (Nate Temple)!