Musician and translator Lucas has reformed his nomadic ways to settle in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter. Intrigued by some cryptic instructions on the back of an anonymous postcard, Lucas finds himself compelled into a love-affair with the sophisticated Nuria. But his attraction is obsessive and vulnerable in turns: can we trust this man's version of the story? After meeting the sublimely liberated Roof People, events spin out of control. He is abducted to the Pyrenees, apparently to the heart of a Cathar Sect exterminated during the thirteenth century. Back in the city's underbelly, tableaux of fire-eaters, drop-outs and bewildered friends accompany Lucas as he degenerates into drug and alcohol-fuelled nihilism.