Kyiv, early 20th century. A young doctor, Volodymyr Shulzhenko, returns home after investigating the case of a vampire from Chernihiv to work at the infirmary of the Lukyanivka Prison Castle. Upon his arrival, he soon learns that the city is rife with eerie and mysterious happenings.

The people of Kyiv have barely recovered from the sensational case of the ""ritual"" murder of the teenager Andriy Yushchynskyi, when, in broad daylight, young women begin to vanish from bustling public places. The killer, dubbed ""The Soul Strangler"" by the police, mutilates the bodies of his victims. But who is he? A new Jack the Ripper? A deranged madman? Or perhaps a disciple of a dark, bloodthirsty cult?

Volodymyr Shulzhenko suspects that these gruesome murders are somehow tied to the arrival of a ""miracle doctor,"" Omar Brahman, a man who supposedly revived a corpse in the morgue for several minutes. What’s more, Brahman has made a wild offer of a million rubles to his university classmate, a proposal he boldly published in the city’s newspaper.