Lost Souls

For the MUD, see Lost Souls MUD

Lost Souls is a 1992 novel by Poppy Z. Brite, about a not-nearly-legal goth teenager who's name is Jason but who calls himself Nothing. Nothing runs away from home in search of a band he's obsessed with called Lost Souls?, and while hitchhiking he's picked up by every goth kid's dream... a trio of real vampires.

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Tropes used in Lost Souls include:

• Agent Peacock: Zillah
• Anonymous Killer Narrator
• Bishounen: The eternally young and preternaturally gorgeous Zillah. Ghost is also described as "lovely".
• Death by Childbirth: Any woman who becomes pregnant with a vampire child will die horribly trying to give birth to it.
• Disposable Woman: The only significant females in the cast are Jessy, who dies early on, and Ann, who mainly exists to force Steve and Ghost to pursue the vampires to retrieve her.
• Door Step Baby: Christian literally leaves Nothing on a doorstop as an infant, complete with note.
• The Empath: Ghost is this, among other things.
• Emo Kid: Nothing. He gets better.
• Everyone Is Bi: The entire cast, almost without exception.
• Fetus Terrible: Vampire fetuses are deadly to their mothers.
• Ho Yay: Zillah and Nothing are canon, as are Nothing and Christian. Steve and Ghost share one kiss.
• Jumped At the Call: Nothing is thrilled to be a vampire, and the only thing he's mournful about is his lack of fangs. Actually, most of the vampires are shown to enjoy their powers and near-immortality, or at least are reigned to it.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Christian reveals that Zillah is Nothing's biological father.
• Karma Houdini: Steve never gets arrested for raping Ann. Also, Nothing never gets any kind of cummupance for helping the trio kill Laine, despite the fact that he was supposedly his best friend. He never even seemed to feel sad.
• The Messiah: Ghost
• Moral Dissonance: Steve's reation to Ann's infidelity.
• Moral Event Horizon: When Nothing is in the van and has the choice to participate in the murder of Laine, he participates at first out of self-preservation, but then because of his true nature, and it represents the beginning of his acceptance of a new life and new morality.
• Old Shame: Brite seems to resent this novel's popularity and her fandom's demands for a sequel.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Notably, you're not turned into a vampire, you're born one. Vampires are a predatory subspecies of humanity that have been living alongside, breeding with, and preying upon humans for eons. In fact, the four main vampires in the book (Zillah, Molochai, Twig, and Nothing) have so much human ancestry that almost all the 'classic' vampire traits have been bred out of them. In one scene, a much younger vampire envies Christian, who is several hundred years old, because he has fangs.
• Parental Incest: Jessy and her father. Zillah and Nothing.
• Psychic Powers: Again, Ghost.
• Staking the Loved One: Subverted. The only staking is done by Ghost, as he takes out Zillah. And Zillah is stabbed through the head, not the heart.
• Squick: Too much to list.
• The Big Easy: The book begins and ends in New Orleans.
• The Man They Couldn't Hang: Zillah was hanged back in the early 20th century, but survived thanks to his regenerative abilities.
• Vampires Are Rich: Subverted. The trio ride around in a van and are basically murderous, opportunistic hobos. Christian supports himself by bartending.
• Vampire Bites Suck: These vampires fall on the gorier end of the scale; at one point, the trio reminisce about dismembering a woman in a bathtub.
• Yaoi Guys: Zillah and Nothing, Nothing and Christian, Nothing and various others...