Set in the Balkans, this story concerns a bored journalist, Nora who is ordered by her boss to follow up a mysterious advertisement placed by Dr Ling. Ling turns out to be a misshapen creature who, rejected by his peers, has become the stereotypical mad scientist, here specializing in plastic surgery. He falls in love with Nora but fearing she will betray him he resuscitates a young man who committed suicide, Ariel by transplanting a new brain into him, and order him to fetch Nora so that he can kill her.