Eric Cord is a college student whose average life comes to an end on the night that his roommate Ted hands him a gun loaded with silver bullets. Ted is a werewolf who has been killing people, and tells Eric to kill him, seeing this as his only way out. A red pentagram on Ted's right palm is the sign that the metamorphosis is coming. Confronted with Eric's disbelief, Ted decides to prove his situation, and asks Eric to tie him up in a chair and wait until midnight, at which time he'd either see for himself or call in professional help. When midnight comes, Ted transforms into a werewolf, forcing his friend to shoot and kill him - but not before he manages to bite Eric. Before long, Eric discovers a pentagram on his own palm, and soon after undergoes his own transformation into a seven-foot-tall werewolf. Now on the run for his friend's murder, Eric Cord spends the remainder of the series on a quest to find and kill the originator of his bloodline, the mysterious Janos Skorzeny, which will break the curse.