The nightmares have gotten worse since Spike has arrived in Sunnydale. For three nights he has been tossing and turning in his sleep, and this night is no different.
He's in an underground cave, somewhere in Sunnydale. In the air hangs the stench of Evil, and the smell of Death. A light breeze carries him forward, towards a man in a strange, tight fitting black and blue outfit. In front of the figure is a strange vortex, a doorway of some kind, and the faint purple light illuminates everything in the cave. Now he's only a few inches away from the man, as he suddenly turns around. The face is hideous, as always, twisted and turned into a caricature of a mortal face. Before he gets the chance to run away, the man grabs him...
He's in the cemetery. From every grave rises a vampire, and he hasn't got enough stakes. They punch him, kick him, pound him, until he's nothing more than a small pile of human. The largest of the vampires lifts him from the ground and wants to bite him...
A book. Pictures of horrible creatures. Demons rising from the Earth. Stakes everywhere. Mutilated humans. A vampire with but one eye. A knight, fighting for his life to defend a gray old man, standing behind him. Fire, burning buildings, people screaming... And as always, the demonic laughter, the vampires with blood on their fangs, feasting on the mortals, killing at will. A strange three-pointed star, carved in flesh. Someone screams his name. "Spike! Spike..."
"Spike? William, for God's sake, wake up! You don't want to be late for school on your first day!"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm up already! And I told you not to call me William, okay?" Spike yells back at his father.
Irritated, he gets kicks away his blanket and swings his legs over the edge of his bed.
"Man, what a great day to start on yet another new school. Just bloody great."
"Well, here we are," John Snyder O'Donnell says as cheery as he possibly can when he stops the Mercedes in front of Sunnydale High School.
Spike gets out of the car and slams the door shut.
"How many times have I told you not to slam the doors! Okay, okay," John calms himself before he continues, "I'm sorry. It's just that it's as hard for me as it is for you. I don't know anyone here, just like you. So..."
"So I'll just go ahead, walk up to some friendly looking folks and ask them if they want to be my friend. Satisfied?"
What did I do to deserve such a stuffed father? Bloody Hell, we should've stayed in England!
John sees the all too familiar look on his son's face, and prays to God that the boy will someday appreciate what he has done for him. He looks his son over, noticing the subtle change in clothes from all black to partially black. Gone is the black heavy metal T-shirt, replaced by a white one. His son now wears a blue pair of jeans, instead of black ones. With holes in it, of course. And the worn-off black combat boots peek out from under the jeans. And, naturally, the ever-faithful black leather raincoat is still present. Spike even wears it when the weather is like this, thirty degrees Celsius in the shade. But hey, he's a teenager. A strange being with whom I have to share a house. At least until he's twenty-one.
"Good luck, William. I mean, Spike," John says sincerely.
The hard look in Spike's eyes softens and he says: "I'm sorry, dad. I'll really try. Good luck on your new job."
"Thanks."
Spike closes the door and watches the car drive down the street. Without further delay he turns around and faces the school.
"Here goes nothing."
"Hey, watch it, man! I'm skating here!" a girl with purple and red hair, wearing a black leather tank top and pants, shouts as she makes her way through the school-going crowd.
Most teens immediately hop aside when they see her all too familiar appearance. The last guy that got on her wrong side wears a bandana to cover his blue eye, and still limps a little. One girl doesn't get out of the way soon enough, and gets knocked over by the electric guitar dangling on the back of the skateboarding girl.
"Just step aside, move along, coming through! Should've moved! Get out of the way people! Get aside, coming through... Whoa! What a hunk..."
Stunned by the handsome looks of a new guy walking to her right, the girl completely forgets to look before her, thus not noticing the guy with the blue jeans and white T-shirt right in front of her.
"Hey, look out!" the guy yells, and keeps his hands in front of his face.
"Oh nooo!" she cries, and smashes into the guy.
On the ground she struggles to get up as fast as she can. Seconds later both are on their feet.
"You know, you should watch where you're standing, Angel," the girl snaps at the quarterback.
"Well, if you wouldn't have been drooling over the new guy, you should've seen me walking, Cordelia," Angel sneers back.
"How many times have I told you not to call me that!" she yells, and raises her right fist.
The black gauntlet with metal spikes comes dangerously close to Angel's face.
"Come on, Talon," he emphasizes the name, "we're not gonna get unfriendly, are we? I'm sorry, I'll watch your step better next time, 'kay?"
"It would be wise of you to do so," Cordelia, lead singer of the band known as Dark Realm, threatens.
She shakes her fist in front of his face once more, collects her skateboard and guitar, and rushes up the stairs to Sunnydale High, trying to catch up with the new guy.
"That was close," Angel remarks to his buddy Dennis, "did you see those spikes? And notice her combat boots? Those steel noses could hurt a guy bad."
"Yeah, I'd hate to be the guy she has a crush on," Dennis agrees.
Unaware of the accident behind him, Spike walks on towards the school. Only when he's inside, he realizes he doesn't have a clue as to where the office of the principal is. Oh, great. That's just my luck, of course. Well, let's see if anyone around here can direct me to the man's office. Or woman's. So he starts to turn around, when a girl bumps into him.
"Excuse me! Rude much? Why don't you look where you're going, I'm walking here," a stuck-up voice with an English accent remarks.
He looks at the girl, and almost starts to blush. She's wearing a simple black dress that barely covers the intimate parts of her body, and her neatly arranged black hair accentuate her facial features. My God, she looks like she's twenty. She's beautiful... on the outside. Okay, here goes nothing.
"I'm sorry. I was just trying to figure out how to get to the principal's office. You see, I'm new here and-"
"Oh, just spare me, okay? You just walk down this corridor, go to your right at the end and it's the first door on the right. Now excuse me, I have important things to do."
Without even so much as an apology the girl walks on. Astonished Spike keeps looking at her as she strides down the corridor. I've never met such a snob, he thinks, and starts in the direction of the principal's office. When the girl reaches a group of evenly snobistic teens, she suddenly turns around and says: "By the way, my name is Drusilla Leighton," and ignores him even before he can think of a reply.
Bloody Hell! Dad, what have you gotten me into? he asks in vain, and proceeds to the office. Making friends here is going to be a very... interesting experience.
"Yes, come in," a voice with yet again an English accent answers after Spike's knocks on the door.
Man, is this like American England or something? What are the odds of meeting two people with English accents on a High School when you yourself are British? I wish my Slayer instinct would just lay low for an hour or something!
Nervous, Spike enters the room. A tall man, wearing glasses and a perfectly fitting gray suit, sits behind a big, mahogany desk.
"Please, be seated, mister..." the man flips to the first page of the dossier in front of him, "William O'Donnell. Born in Edinburgh seventeen years ago, and moved here recently. Last attended school... ah, yes, Courtland High. According to your record, Mister O'Donnell, you, and I quote: '... burnt down the gym at Prom Night' after which you took off on a stolen motorcycle. Well... Let's get one thing straight, mister O'Donnell," the principal starts, as he takes off his glasses and whipes them clean, "on Sunnydale High students don't burn down gyms, and they don't drive stolen motorcycles."
Oh man, here comes the welcoming speech, it flashes through Spike's head.
"My name is principal Rupert Giles, and I have had a clean record until this day. Sunnydale High may not be the largest school in the state, but it is the school with the least stealing, cheating, or other crimes you can think off. Why, you ask? Because I don't like teenagers. In my eyes puberty is a phase bestowed on a child by some higher power to test the adults around it. Teenagers are a plague, one that has to be contained by adults as good as possible. And I, Mister O'Donnell, am very good at containing things."
The principal gets out of his chair, and starts to circle Spike while he goes on about teenagers. Somewhere along the line Spike's mind becomes a black hole, absorbing everything he hears, and crushing it into oblivion instantly. A change in the tone of the man's voice catches Spike's attention again, and he sits up straight, veining interest. Giles takes his place behind the desk again, folds his hands, and looks Spike right in his eyes with a mean look in his.
"And that, mister O'Donnell, is why I will be keeping a close, a very close eye on you," the principal's voice sounds lower and lower, and in it lies a tone of danger. "If you so much as blink at someone the wrong way, I'll have your ass kicked out of school so hard you'll go into orbit, get it?"
Stunned by the man's hidden aggression, Spike nods.
"Good. I'll forget the little incident that caused you to redirect to another school," the principal tears up Spike's record, "but when something happens, my memory tends to get sharpened up, understand? I see you have a class in fifteen minutes, Mister O'Donnell. Have a nice day, and welcome to Sunnydale High," the principal concludes with a friendly smile.
Rupert Giles extends his right hand while he gets up again. Bewildered by this strange conversation, and the very sudden changes of mood the man seems to have, Spike also gets out of his chair. The two exchange looks. Then Spike turns around, and walks out of the office, ignoring the hand. When the door shuts, Giles sinks into his chair.
"Stubborn, cocky and a pain in the ass. This might prove to become quite interesting."
A swift movement of his right hand above the torn up papers makes the pieces glow. Seconds later the boy's record is whole again, as if nothing happened.
"Yes, quite interesting indeed."