Ann Stewart had been swept off her feet and plunged into marriage with young Dr. Ian Stewart. Despite the warnings of others about Ian's mysterious ways and violent temper, she was blinded to everything but his virile good looks, his unyielding strength of purpose, his dazzling sharpness of intellect.

Only when Anne moved into the great stone mansion high above the city of Edinburgh did she begin to glimpse the dark side of this man who claimed her as his own. What strange rites did he perform in the cellars that Ann was forbidden to enter? What diabolical hold did Ian's satanic mentor, the "mad" Dr. Marsh, have upon him? Was she, Ann, fated to become another hideously disfigured body sacrificed on the altar of unholy science? With every passing day of dread and night of terror, Ann's heavenly dream of love turned into a nightmare straight out of hell....