DELETED SCENES FROM LOST SOULS

 

 

(cut from Chapter One)

San Francisco

April 1906

 

Kiyoshi Ishibe felt the trembling deep within the earth before the first shockwave jolted the city. He woke his lover, Ryuhei, shortly before the quake began. They made it outside in time to watch the world crumble.

The smell of mortal blood was thick in the air and though Ryuhei wanted to flee the ravaged city Kiyoshi wouldn't go. "They need us Ryuhei, we can help so many.  We have to try."

But there was more than human suffering that drove Kiyoshi through the ravaged streets. It was scent that was all too familiar. The blood of the Poisoned Dragon, the feared Chinese assassin he thought he'd killed three decades earlier. The beast should have died, would have died if he hadn't had the heart of a demon within him. He'd bitten Kiyoshi back that day, ingested  enough of the powerful kyuuketsuki blood to heal the massive wounds and make him immortal.

“Put the woman down.”

Kiyoshi jumped down from the ledge of a collapsed building, his lithe landing with the grace and agility of cat. He studied the monster he'd created in the flickering light of  the city burning around them.

Shu pulled his teeth out of his latest victim’s neck, and the woman convulsed in his hands. “You…” his shocked expression quickly shifted to one of rage. He bared his bloodstained fangs at Kiyoshi. “Oh, I’ve been looking for you.”

 “I know,” Kiyoshi whispered. “I followed the bodies. You don’t have to kill so many to survive.”

Shu snapped the woman’s neck and flung her limp body to the uneven cobblestone street, damaged in the earthquake. “Really?” he looked at his hands. Kiyoshi could smell other blood underneath that of all the others Shu had slain to get Kiyoshi’s attention. It was the blood of the Toshiro, Shu's mortal lover.

“What other useful bits of information could you have given me all those years ago?” Shu demanded.

Kiyoshi took a step back. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.” He shook his head. “You weren’t supposed to change.”

“How did I change?” Shu’s eyes flashed and his pulse pounded in his chest with growing fury.

“It was an accident,” Kiyoshi rubbed his throat, absently feeling the scars left behind by Shu’s bite. “I’m sorry,” Kiyoshi whispered.

With a cry of fury and grief, Shu darted forward and grabbed Kiyoshi by the throat. He shoved him into the remains of a  wall and punched his free hand straight into Kiyoshi’s chest. He gripped the beating heart inside and ripped the organ out with his hand.

Kiyoshi watched the rest form outside himself as if in a dream. He watched Shu let his limp body slide to the ground and he stared at the bloody mass of tissue—his heart-- in Shu's hands. Shu crushed it in his fist and watched as the blood leached out through his fingers and splattered onto the Kiyoshi’s corpse at his feet. Throwing the heart away like so much offal Shu stalked off.

A strange heaviness overcame Kiyoshi and it pulled him down into the blood soaked ground back towards is dead body yet not into it.

 

Ryuhei tried to deny the strange discomfort tugging at him throughout the long day. He brushed it aside again and again as he helped so many stricken mortals the way Kiyoshi wanted him too. It wasn't until he caught sight of the wretched little flesheater peering at him from behind blackened timbers of a ruined theater that Ryuhei acknowledged the horrible truth.

The little ghoul wrung his bony hands, muttered the same thing over and again as they picked their way through the smoldering rubble. "I told him to leave that man alone. I told him the Dragon was a curse to all who fell in his path but he wouldn't listen…"

"Oh Gods," Ryuhei groaned when he smelled it, the unique scent of Kiyoshi's blood.  Another strangled cry escaped him as he  fell to his knees, scooped up the bloodied body of his beloved.  The bastard had torn out his heart, that beautiful gentle heart that only wanted to live in peace.  Tears  streamed down his cheeks and Ryuhei cursed each and every one that obscured the sight of his kimi's lovely face.

With infinite care Ryuhei smoothed back the matted brown hair that I life had been like strands of the finest spun silk, tumbling against his face in the throes of passion. Ryuhei used the tail of his shirt to wipe the blood and grime from Kiyoshi's high cheekbones. "Oh Kiyo-kun what has he done to you." With trembling fingers Ryuhei stroked the cold pallid cheek. "What will I do without you? I'm nothing without you by my side…"

Gobei scrambled over the broken wall and tugged at Ryuhei's coat. "Nakamura, mortals. You have to go. Hurry."

"What does it matter?"

"Nakamura. Please. They'll shoot you and when they see you won't die---"

Ryuhei forced himself to act. He stood, cradling Kiyoshi's body in his arms.

Kiyoshi's spirit remained anchored to the ground when Ryuhei lifted his lifeless corpse from the blood soaked ground.

"Come, kimi. I'll take you home. I'll take you back to Japan," he whispered.

Kiyoshi regarded him sadly and rubbed his hand across Ryu's shoulders, though the living kyuuketsuki never felt the caress. "I'm here, Ryu."

Ryuhei walked away. Kiyoshi moved to follow...but his feet would not lift off the ground. Puzzled, he looked down at the earth beneath his bare toes and panic came over him. The earth held him fast, tugged him down.

\"Ryu-san--wait," Kiyoshi called out.  "Ryu-san!" Kiyoshi cried as he strained against the invisible holds binding him to this place. "Please wait!"

Ryuhei never heard. His figure already disappearing over the crest of the hill of rubble , the blackness of the night swallowing him.

"Don't leave me here!" Kiyoshi covered his face with his hands and sank to his knees. "Please come back for me, Ryuhei..."

Ryu-san was gone. Gobei returned for a moment but could not hear him.

Hours slipped by, the night becoming day. Days becoming weeks. Weeks in turn becoming years.

* * * *

(cut from Chapter Six)

 

"...and sign it With 'My love always'..." Kiyoshi moved around behind Jesse as the boy finished putting down the last few strokes for the kanji. He had his arms tucked into the wide sleeves of the kimono he always wore.

Though Kiyoshi had never said so, Jesse suspected those were the clothes Kiyoshi had died in. A simple black kimono with no patterns or crests, and dark grey hakama. Beneath the hem of these loose fitting pants, Kiyoshi was barefoot. He wouldn't have made a sound with his steps anyway; his feet never really touched the floor.

After signing Kiyoshi's name on behalf of the ghost, Jesse waved the rice paper around to dry the ink. "He doesn't even read these, you know," Jesse sighed.

"Of course Ryu-san reads them," Kiyoshi sat on the bed across from the desk. His ethereal form actually just hovered above the rumpled sheets, never

 

touching the fabric. He pointed to the computer occupying half of the desk where Jesse was sitting. "His website says he reads all his fans letters.

 

"He probably gets, like, a thousand a day," Jesse raised his eyebrows and gave Kiyoshi a skeptical look.

"Even so, he would read each one." Kiyoshi added dryly, though with an affectionate undertone, "Trust me, Ryuhei wouldn't like anything more than piles of notes from admirers."

Laughing, Jesse folded the letter and slipped into an envelope. "The guy really does have an ego, huh?" he teased.

Kiyoshi chuckled and raised his knees to under his chin. "Oh, yes," his laughter faded into a sigh and he wrapped his arms around his legs. "But only for some things, and he's never too proud. Though he could be. Ryu-san is a very talented, beautiful man."

"I wish I could've seen him the way you did," Jesse bit down on his lower lip. He swiveled his chair around to face Kiyoshi. "On stage, in Edo."

"You would have been like every other mortal boy in the audience..." Kiyoshi nodded while his eyes focused on another place beyond the grass stains Jesse's soccer shoes had left on the carpet, and on another time not the 20th century. "...spellbound by the stunning onnagata on stage, almost convinced that it was a ruse set up by the theater's managers--that they'd hired a woman for the role because no man could be that lovely. Then you'd line up with other patrons after the performance to meet the actors, and when Ryuhei came out of the dressing rooms you'd recognize the same person you saw on stage, just as graceful and poised outside of the make-up."

"Did you love him right away?" Jesse asked quietly. "After the first time you saw him?"

Kiyoshi blinked a few times, his pearlescent form shimmering in the morning sunlight. "In some ways...yes. He performed with so much passion, I could feel it all the way from the back of the audience."
"And you went to meet him afterwards?" Jesse leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees.

"No," Kiyoshi shook his head, strands of hair falling across his face and covering his eyes. "I never gave into those impulses. I was always afraid of what I'd do, as a kyuuketsuki."

"Oh..." Jesse breathed. "You didn't trust yourself to just talk with him?"

"It would've been more than just talking..." Kiyoshi whispered.
At fourteen, Jesse already knew enough to understand what his friend meant. He lowered his voice as if he and Kiyoshi weren't the only ones in the room, or even on the whole second floor of the townhouse for that matter. "Sex between vampires and humans is a bad thing?" he whispered. He felt his cheeks start to burn and Kiyoshi chuckled.

"No it's, um, good," Kiyoshi chewed on his upper lip in an effort to keep from laughing any more. "Very good."

Jesse knew his eyes had to be big as saucers. "So why didn't you...you know...?"

"I--I didn't want to hurt him," Kiyoshi rested his chin on his knees and gazed off into the distance again. "That passion I loved might have driven me to kill him."

"You would never hurt someone, Kiyoshi," Jesse shook his head.

"Not true," Kiyoshi murmurmed saddly. "But I wish it was."
Jesse changed the subject. He told himself it was to keep Kiyoshi from feeling sorry about things that couldn't be helped anymore, but he also didn't want to know the things Kiyoshi might regret. He didn't want to picture his friend killing, though Jesse knew he must have as a vampire.

"So how did you two meet then?"

"Years later and just by chance," Kiyoshi replied. "I'd spent some time out of Japan, and returned to wander the countryside. Ryu-san was performing in one of the first villages I came across. I sensed that passion of his again, and this time I was too curious to resist. He came out of an inn and I followed him."

"You were his stalker!" Jesse teased.

Kiyoshi scrunched his nose at Jesse, but laughed. "I couldn't help it, I was drawn to him." He rested his chin back on his knees. "But Ryu-san was the one who invited me to bed."

Jesse sucked in his breath and, but tried to sound nonchalant. "That's cool..." his voice cracked at the end, and he turned away from Kiyoshi's chuckles.

There was so much love in Kiyoshi's voice when he talked about Ryuhei Nakamura. The ghost even appeared more fleshed out--less whispy and transluccent as if those happy memories gave him more strength to hold on to this realm. When Jesse had been much, much younger--still in preschool--he could remember being able to hold on to Kiyoshi's hand and the ghost could follow him to the playground, or the supermarket or wherever. Now it seemed like Kiyoshi was anchored to the house, and whatever supernatural energies kept him in the world of leaving faded a little more every day. But when Kiyoshi thought about Ryuhei, it gave the ghost a reason to stay. Love was that reason.

Jesse stared down at the desk where the envelope with Kiyoshi's letter rested, all ready to be mailed out. Another wish sprang to his lips, but he held it from being said out loud: I wish I could know the love you did, Kiyoshi.

"Tomo," Jesse said quietly, reverting to his old and less-used nickname for his friend. "Let's say Ryuhei does read all his fan mail. I'm sure a manager or someone in his office or whatever reads them first, to make sure they're safe."

He turned and frowned at Kiyoshi. "What if they think we're a couple of nuts? And not a single one of the letters we've ever written explaining what's going on have reached him?"

Kiyoshi wilted. Not just in posture, but his entire being dulled and faded. Not a lot, but enough for Jesse to notice. "I'm sure he just gets so many ltters, he doesn't have time to read them all right away."

They'd been writing these for years--at least once a month since Jesse was old enough to go to the post office for himself and buy postage to Japan. Ryuhei couldn't possibly be sorting through mail more than five years old.

"One of them will reach him," Kiyoshi smiled weakly. "I know it will."

"Sure," Jesse returned the weak smile. "I better run before I'm late for classes again. I'll drop this off right after; there's no band practice today."

He slipped the letter into his Jansport bag and started out.
"Thank you, Jesse-kun," Kiyoshi called after him. When he turned to wave goodbye, the ghost had vanished.

Jesse took the stairs two steps at a time and grabbed his jacket from the hook next to the front door. “Bye mom!” he called out, but there was no answer. He craned his neck to get a view of the clock that hung on the kitchen wall through the opening that faced the living room. It was already past eight--his mom had left for the day and he was late.
“Shit!” Jesse threw on his jacket and ran out, locking the front door behind him. The whole way to the high school climbed up a steep hill, and autumn in the bay area meant the air was frosty and damp. He didn’t stop running until he got to the school’s front steps, and by then he was out of breath and shivering.

In a rush to make it to study hall before the next bell rang and one of the monitors caught him, Jesse didn’t notice the other guy standing just around the corner of the hall. He crashed into the taller, heavier set student. His backpack hit the floor and everything spilled out across the linoleum.

“What the hell’s your problem, Shigeta?” the guy shoved Jesse back against the wall.

“Sorry, Lance,” Jesse mumbled. Lance Takemoto was the same age as Jesse, but twice as big and already drawing the attention of scouts from UCLA’s varsity program. But he was bored with classes and disappeared whenever there wasn’t a practice scheduled which is what Jesse must’ve caught him doing—trying to cut school. And it pissed the short-tempered kid off.

“Watch where you’re going next time, asswipe,” Lance shoved Jesse again, stepping on his spilled books. Glancing down, he noticed the envelope with Kiyoshi’s letter and his eyes swept over the kanji.
Jesse dove for the envelope, but Lance beat him to it. “Leave it!” Jesse tried to snatch the letter back, but Lance held it overhead like some stupid ass six-year-old playing a game of keep away.

“You’re a fan of that Japanese rockstar, Ryu or whatever the hell his name is,” Lance laughed. “What’s this, a fucking love letter?”

It was, actually. Not in the exactly in the same sense Lance meant, but Jesse’s face still flushed.

Lance roared with laughter, and Jesse’s hands balled into fists. He rammed right into Lance, landing a good punch along the right side of the guy’s face. Lance grabbed Jesse on the way down, and they crashed onto the floor in a whirl of fists.

“Enough!” Someone pried Jesse off of Lance with a hand on the back of his jacket. The woman’s sharp voice made both boys freeze. “The two of you to the office—right now.”

“Mrs. Ortiz—” Jesse stared.

“Now!” the vice principal snapped. She was furious. Wiping his bloody nose on the back of his hand, Jesse grabbed his things and tried to ignore Lance’s snickers. She followed them down the hall and to the left, where they piled into the administration office. The crammed little room bustled with the morning rush—attendance papers and roll calls were coming in from the student aids, substitute teachers waited for their lesson plans, the phone rang endlessly, and the two secretaries looked worn out already. Mrs. Ortiz pointed for Jesse and Lance to sit down while she helped sort some of the mess out.

Across from the desk, the row of chairs for students who’d been called in to see the principal was almost full. Lance dropped down into the only empty seat, the one next a kid Jesse recognized from homeroom named Ken.

Ken raised his eyebrows at the trickle of blood still coming from Jesse’s right nostril and he turned to eye Lance warily. Unlike most of the student body, Ken wasn’t really intimidated by Lance at all. He hardly ever got into fights anyway, but when he did, he could kick just about anyone’s ass—Lance included. Ken was almost a different person on those rare occasions; where that intensity came from, Jesse had no clue.

Lance didn’t even look in Ken’s direction. He just glared at Jesse, arms folded across his chest. “Asshole,” he spat. “You’re lucky she came by.”

Jesse tried to ignore him, smoothing out Kiyoshi’s crinkled letter before stuffing it back into his bag and making sure the zipper was shut tight.

But Lance didn’t give up. “You little fruit, are you into that rock star?

Did you have a wet dream for that Ryu guy last night?”

“Leave him alone, alright?” Ken spat at Lance.

“Bite it, Ohara,” Lance muttered. “Mind your own business.”

“Shut your mouth and I will,” Ken retorted.

“Or what, you’ll have your friend’s dad get his goons to beat my dad up?”

Lance pointed to Lok who was sitting on Ken’s other side and snickered.

“Bite it,” Lok leaned over, giving Lance the finger.
“I’m not tolerating any of this behavior,” Mrs. Ortiz stomped over, their raised voices distracting her from the other school business. She pointed to Lance, Ken and Lok. “The three of you into my office right now.”
While the three guys went in to the back room, she turned to Jesse and put her hands on her hips. “Go to your classes, Jesse. I don’t know why you were fighting this morning, but I don’t expect to see you do it again.”
Jesse nodded and watched her go back into her office. Hopefully she wouldn’t chew Ken out too much; Jesse owed him one.

I didn’t know you liked Ryu, Jesse.”

He looked over to the row of chairs where a girl dressed in a black bodice was waving him over. “Hi, April,” he said. “Yeah...a friend of mine got me into his music.”

“Cool,” she grinned. As a hardcore fan, she seemed thrilled to have someone else to jabber with about Ryu. She went on about Ryu being a musical genius—how he won an academy award for that soundtrack he wrote a few years ago, and he was even in a video with Madonna—and she knew just about every detail a fan could know.

“Have you heard his Mukashi Mukashi album?” April asked.

Jesse had ordered the CD a week ago online for Kiyoshi, but it still hadn’t arrived. He shook his head and the girl rummaged through her bag.

“My sister just came back from that music student exchange program I told you about at band practice last week,” April pulled out a CD case and held it out to Jesse. “She picked it up for me while she was there. You can borrow until you get your copy.”

“Thanks.” Jesse took the CD.

“Get going before that jerk comes out again,” April nodded her head towards the door where Lance was in the back office. Jesse thanked her again and left.

But he couldn’t get his mind back into school. Instead of going to classes, Jesse went to the empty auditorium and to the storage rooms off to the side of the stage. He had a key from the music director for the room where the band instruments were kept, and he slipped inside.
Sunlight poured in from the windows that faced the East, glinting on the polished metal of the drums and cymbals on the shelves, and on the cases for the extra trumpets, flutes and other wind instruments. The area smelled of resin and leather, and had a sense of peace that helped Jesse feel a little calmer.

Jesse sat in the corner, his back against the wall, and his feet propped up on a bass drum case. For long time, he just stared at the case for the CD resting in his lap and the photograph on the cover.

Midnight blue colored kanji spelled out the album’s title in a vertical line along the left side, so vivid against the pure white of the background. Ryuhei appeared to be stepping out of this endless sea of white, dressed black and more of that rich indigo. The costume itself looked almost like a kimono, but with strips of leather and ties that ran from his shoulders and tied around his waist. Ryuhei’s face was painted white to match the background, his eyes an unnatural cobalt blue, his hair a deep, rich shade of plum.

Ryu was beautiful. Just the way Kiyoshi always said.
Jesse pulled his discman out of his pack and popped in the CD. The music started—violins mixed with traditional instruments like the koto and shamisen. Ryuhei’s voice drifted into the foreground, so haunting and moving that Jesse’s heart ached in a way he couldn’t understand. He thought of the things Kiyoshi had told him just a couple of hours earlier, and traced his fingertips over the outline of Ryu’s photograph. From the corner of the eye, he saw the edge of Kiyoshi’s rumpled letter and sighed.

“If he really read them, he’d write back, Tomo,” Jesse whispered. He took the letter and folded it in half before tucking into the inside flap of his binder. There wasn’t any point in mailing these letters.

Jesse leaned his head back against the wall. He put the CD to repeat and closed his eyes.