Shades of Blood (Templar Chronicles Missions, #1)
About
Before he became the legendary Heretic. Before he lost everything to the Adversary. Cade Williams was still learning what it meant to command.
Five years into his command of Echo Team, Captain Cade Williams is handed a nightmare assignment. A veteran Knight Captain and his entire squad have vanished in Boston. The only clue is a panicked message from a parish priest about missing street people and a mysterious blood cult operating in the city.
Then Echo Team finds the priest dead, his body drained not of blood, but of the very life force that sustained him. Stuffed into his mouth is the missing captain's Templar ring.
The blood cult isn't human. Ch'iang Shih have come to Boston—animated corpses driven by an insatiable hunger for Chi. These ancient Chinese vampires don't simply kill their victims; they consume the life inside them. And somewhere in the city, they have Bishop and the rest of his team.
Cade and Echo Team have faced the supernatural before, but nothing has prepared them for enemies that can move between worlds, shrug off gunfire, and strike from places ordinary men can't even see. Every clue leads deeper into a threat they barely understand, while every hour that passes makes it less likely they'll find their missing brothers alive.
The surviving Templars may still be out there. Finding them means walking straight into an obvious trap.
Echo Team goes anyway.
Because Cade Williams may still have lessons to learn about command, but some things about the man who will become the Heretic are already firmly in place. He doesn't abandon his people. He doesn't leave a mission unfinished. And when the darkness takes one of his own, Cade Williams goes into the darkness after them.
BEFORE THE LEGEND CAME THE MISSIONS THAT MADE HIM.
Shades of Blood is a Templar Chronicles Mission, a fast-paced supernatural thriller from the early days of Cade Williams and Echo Team, featuring modern Templar knights, Chinese vampires, military action, dark magick, and the secret war against the supernatural.
Whether you're a longtime Templar Chronicles reader or meeting Echo Team for the first time, this standalone adventure takes you back to a younger Cade Williams—before the scars, before the Adversary, and before the world learned to fear the Heretic.