Lost Souls

Lost Souls is a 1992 horror novel by American writer Poppy Z. Brite, his debut novel. It is the only novel-length adventure of Brite's 'Steve and Ghost' characters, popularized in numerous short stories. The novel is an extended version of the short story "The Seed of Lost Souls". Several characters introduced in the novel make appearances in Brite's second novel, Drawing Blood, though it is not a direct sequel. Plot Fifteen years ago, in a bar in New Orleans run by a hundreds-year-old vampire named Christian, fifteen-year-old Jessy is seduced, impregnated, and abandoned by a charismatic and dangerous vampire named Zillah, leader of his own small nomadic vampire coven. Due to the nature of vampiric birth, in which the fetus devours its mother from the inside out, Jessy dies in childbirth. Christian leaves the male infant on a stranger's doorstep in Maryland in hopes that the child will be able to live a normal life.