Set in Seattle in 2007, the novel follows Parker, a starving artist with a haunted past and a penchant for self-destruction. After a drug- and booze-fueled night he cannot remember, Parker wakes up sick—and not in a hangover kind of way. When he reaches out to an old friend, Conner, the answer he gets is the last thing he expects: vampirism.

Reluctantly agreeing to be Conner’s science experiment, Parker joins a ragtag team of amateur vampire hunters in a desperate bid to find—and possibly kill—the vampire who turned him. But things quickly spiral out of control. Now being hunted by a dangerously powerful vampire tycoon, Parker and his misfit crew must navigate the blood-soaked underworld of Seattle before time runs out.

Parker is far from your typical hero—emo, drug-addled, vegan, and very much undead—but with his unconventional found family at his side, including a hippie engineering dropout, a second-generation vampire researcher, a spunky legacy hunter, and a “reformed” drug dealer, Parker is determined to take control of his fate. Together, they race to unravel the terms of a sinister contract Parker never agreed to, all while he grapples with the terrifying reality of becoming the very thing he has sworn to destroy.