SPIKE: A man can change.
BUFFY: You're not a man. You're a thing.
                    Smashed
 

 

    Spike was caught in the hall by his most intelligent minion. He was one Spike had created, to his own surprise. Danny had startled Spike with his history. Despite Danny's penchant for punk music, he’d worked as a librarian before he was turned, and still wore glasses, though when fully vamped he didn’t need them. Spike always liked keeping a brain around, if he could get one. The trick was finding one with enough brain to think, but a weak enough will to serve. “New guy just woke up,” Danny told him.

    Spike was startled. He’d almost forgotten that the world outside his lair existed. That there were plots and plans, slayers and minions, and a whole dark world beyond Sarah, and Drusilla, and the twisted confusion between them. “Good,” Spike said. “Let me see him.”

    He moved through the hall to one of the other flats, more dilapidated than most of the others. Not that anyone cared. Most vampires were slovens when they were first turned, and Spike had been no exception. He’d abandoned his gentleman’s roots and fallen into working-man’s attire and coarse language, dove into drink and depravity as much as he had blood and violence. Drusilla had found it amusing. She’d always had faith in him, for reasons he’d never understood in his early days. She’d been proven right, of course. Spike was now the slayer of a slayer, and a formidable Big Bad wherever they chose to lay their hats. Of course, Angelus hadn’t had much patience with Spike’s juvenile delinquency. He had nearly dusted him a dozen times, but always changed his mind, or allowed Dru to stay his hand.

    Spike himself was usually pretty forgiving. He demanded obedience, an appearance that wouldn’t draw the wrong kind of attention – so nothing too bloodstained or horrific – and that his minions kept their mess out of his section of the lair. After that, he knew they’d be leaving beer cans in piles and only changing their clothes when the cockroaches started to nibble on them from the filth. So long as their squalor didn’t start actual fires, he let them do as they wished.

    Usually, they didn’t wish much. There were actually enough separate flats in this lair for each of his minions to have their own human style dwelling. Instead, they nested in the corridor like rats, and used the flats sparingly, mostly for feeding or fucking – if they even bothered finding privacy for that sort of thing. Spike tended to have deep contempt for his minions. And for most other vampires, for that matter. Apart from Drusilla and the back-and-forth relationship he’d had with her sire, there were very few members of his own kind he had ever truly liked, or felt companionship for.

    The new minions were left to turn – or rot, if the change didn’t take – in a flat on the ground floor, filled with dumpster couches and piles of newspaper. A few rats scurried away as Spike entered. The newest vamp sat bewildered on the couch. He looked up as Spike entered with relief in his yellow eyes. “Hey, boss!” he said. “You’re boss, right.”

    Spike nodded.

    “I remember. It was.... Where are we?”

    “Still in the Bowery. This is home.”

    The vampire nodded. “Okay. Okay, yeah, okay.” He nodded to himself for a long moment. Then he looked up at Spike. “Is there anyone around to kill?”

    Spike smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “Plenty.”

    The newborn shivered with anticipation, and showed all his new fangs, growling in his excitement. Then he stood up. “I can’t wait! Where’s Margo?”

    Spike blinked. “Who?”

    “My girl. You took her too, right?”

    Spike was surprised he cared enough to remember. “Nope. She’s in the river.”

    The minion paused. “River.”

    “Yep. Don’t turn a lot of girls. She didn’t look tough enough.”

    “Oh.”

    Spike waited to see if this would be a problem for the guy. It usually wasn’t. Usually when he pulled a double assault like this, they only remembered the girl in passing. Every once in a while they’d become enraged, and attack. Spike actually sort of liked those guys – they tended to be loyal, as minions went – and after he beat them down, proving his superiority, he’d give them permission to find someone else if they wanted. They usually accepted that and settled down, and he’d only had a handful actually bother to go turn a new girl. Most figured out after their first kill that they could have whatever they wanted without being pussy-whipped.

    “So, you didn’t take her?”

    “Not more’n you saw.”

    “Oh.” The newborn considered this, and then started to laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah!” He guffawed. “All that blood! Ha!” He came up and punched Spike in the shoulder. “You really took her good, didn’t you! You really know what you’re doin’! That scream she gave, that was great! What you did to her. Wow, man. They said they’ll let me out hunting. I can kill something, right? I can’t wait to kill something. You got something for me to kill, boss?”

    “You figure that out yourself, mate,” Spike said. “One of the older boys will take you, first time. Give you the rules. Mostly, don’t draw attention to the lair, and don’t get caught by cops. And CB’s is mine – you hunt elsewhere.”

    “Oh. Yeah, yeah, okay. I can do that, boss.”

    “Good boy,” Spike said. His face ached with the hard, dull look he always threw at his minions.

    “Can I take a girl, boss? I want a girl, like you, boss. Can I take one like you took Margo?” The newborn’s face was excited, his yellow eyes bright with both lust and blood lust, and he bounced a little in anticipation.

    He was a true demon. He knew what he wanted, and he wanted evil and death and depravity. It was very, very clear. He wanted to rape and kill and feed, and he was eager to get started.

    Spike had no idea why he did what he did next. In a fit of inexplicable rage he plunged his hand into the nearest wall, took hold of something – which turned out to be a lath – and ripped it out of the plaster. He kneed the newborn in the stomach, punched him to the ground, and stepped on his neck before he plunged the lath down. The newborn was dusted before he even knew what was happening.

    Danny frowned at him. “What was that about, boss?”

    Spike knelt on the floor, dust still covering his hands. He didn’t know. He had done it, he was satisfied with it, he had wasted a perfectly good minion and a lot of work and now he’d need to make another one, and he had no idea why he had done it. He stared into space, trembling with it, trying to understand. “I didn’t like the sound of his bloody voice,” he said roughly. It was as good an excuse as any.

    Danny looked confused. “But we saved him for you. Dragged him in here and everything. Trigger was gonna take him out and teach him to hunt.”

    “I didn’t like him,” Spike snarled.

    “Then why–”

    Spike launched to his feet and grabbed his chief minion, pointing the lath at Danny’s face. “You keep yammering and I might decide I don’t like your voice, either, mate.”

    “Yes, boss. I mean no, boss. S-sorry, I....” The minion stopped, realizing he was still talking.

    “Don’t question my actions,” Spike snarled. “I’d hate to have to hurt you.” He jammed Danny against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.

    “No, boss.”

    Spike hit him anyway, hard, and then harder, and then even harder, and then stopped himself. Danny was his only minion with half a brain, and he needed him as an overseer for the others. Spike dropped him into the rubble and stepped back. He was breathing hard, but it wasn’t with exertion. He felt like he was in the middle of a fight for his life, rather than a stupid tussle with a couple of his own idiot weak-willed minions. He stopped himself from kicking Danny and left him there, pushing back through the hallway as if through an angry mob. He kicked or punched any of the boys who didn’t get out of the way fast enough. He retreated to his lair, leaving half a dozen of the boys clutching bruises or wounds, and slammed the door behind him.

    Sarah was at the bookshelf, a book of poetry in her hand. She was reading his bloody poetry! God, what was she doing to him? Fucking beautiful bitch, he should kill her immediately. Break her neck, rip her head off, drink from her bloody brainstem, she was more evil than he ever had been, tearing him up like this. He dropped the lath and went to her, catching her into his arms. Oh, god, yes. Her heat, her form, her tiny heartbeat, the sound of her breath catching as he pulled her against him, the taste of her skin as he kissed her face, squeezed her close, nibbled on her flesh. She filled him, filled him so completely, in ways he couldn’t begin to understand. God, what was he doing? Bloody impulsive. That was what he was. And he had to go with it, now, or he’d lose courage.

    “You’re back early.”

    “Get dressed,” he told her. He kissed her mouth tenderly, tasting her over and over and over again. “Get dressed, sweet thing. We’re going out.”