Fool of the Devil II-4 (Patreon)

II-4: Snakes at Dusk

The streets of Sunnydale sprawled ahead, busted pavement splitting wide under the lazy amber spill of streetlights. The buzz overhead felt sticky and electric, like the town itself was sweating from the heat. Summer clung to the night air, thick with the smells of fresh-cut grass, asphalt gone soft from the heat, and somebody’s backyard barbecue still pushing smoke into the dark.

Xander’s sneakers hit the sidewalk in a steady thunk-thunk-thunk, the rhythm cutting through the cicada chatter. It was familiar. Simple. It felt like his, the one part of him that hadn’t gone hungry and sharp and wrong.

The jacket, though? Whole different vibe. Blood-red, leather, and loud enough to get a side-eye from a blind man. Paired with brand-new jeans, still crisp and stiff as hell, it screamed ‘cartoon character’s first appearance.’  But hey…He grinned down at himself. “...I look good.” Too much, too bright, too stupid.

Perfect.

Vampires were basically crows, anyway. Walk around in something shiny and colorful and they flocked in, barely able to help themselves, all teeth and out of date clothes.

“Bloodsuckers love a splash of red,” he muttered, grin pulling crooked. 

Pun absolutely intended.

He kicked at a stray rock from the curb with the edge of his sneaker, the action a casual swipe of his foot.

Crack! The thing shot off like a bullet, punched clean through the air.

Thunk. Gone. Somewhere behind the building, something hit—hard.

Xander winced. “...Oops. Hope that wasn’t somebody’s grandma.”

The grin slipped, and his hands found his pockets, fingers curling slow against the lining. That familiar knot, pulsing like his heartbeat but heavier. It was always there now, ever since he had figured out how to use magic like a Devil to save Buffy’s life. A hum, electric and starving. It didn’t ask to move; it wanted to. 

Crack something. Take.

Worse? It was getting routine.

The freaky part wasn’t the strength, or the speed, or the way his body felt too easy, like he could rip through a brick wall if he really felt like it. The freaky part was that it didn’t feel freaky anymore.

It felt normal.

And that? That sucked.

His jaw clenched, molars grinding against the tension. Should he tell Buffy?He didn’t know.

And not knowing. God, that was the worst part.

She was back. And Sunnydale felt more... right with her here. But also…Off.

Vamps were twitchy lately. Some scattered like roaches when the light flipped on. The rest? They stayed. Lurking. Watching. And something about the way they stayed felt like an open invitation.

Good, a voice curled low and sharp under his skin.

...Speaking of.

His head tilted, gaze cutting toward the alley ahead, the one the streetlights couldn’t quite pierce through. The shadows pooled thick, but despite his better eyes, he didn’t need to see—

He could feel them. Four shapes. Leathered up, real subtle. Lurkers. And yeah, vamps did love their leather. Whole damn wardrobe straight from the goth store.

The smell hit next.Grave-dirt. Old blood. Thick, coppery, wrong. It clung to the air, climbed up his throat like it was trying to settle in his lungs. And under it?something else. Bitter. Dry. 

Dust and rot, but... thinner. Cracked.

His nostrils flared. “...Grave dirt and...?” The taste stuck sharp on his tongue.

That wasn’t the usual flavor.

A tick of something sharp pulled through his muscles, dark red energies gathering in his palms, fingers twitching, teeth clenching. The itch was there, crawling under his skin, pressing against the inside of his ribs. His body didn’t tense, it asked. 

Ready to burst forward, to break them.

Xander’s lips pulled tight, his voice low and half to himself. “...That’s new.”

The pulse came, not through his chest, but through his bones. Hunt.

The grin returned, slow, cold, and mean.

“Eh. Who cares?”

He moved, as fast as a horse’s gallop. Ground eating the space under his feet like it owed him something.

And then—

“Oi.”

His voice snapped through the dark, sharp as broken glass, and the alley seemed to contract around the sound as they scrambled back, surprised by his sudden appearance.

“Leeches.”

The grin widened, crooked and sharp, teeth bared without thinking, a flash of something cold and wild beneath it.

“Who’s hungry?”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The cantina stank of tequila, sweat, and blood gone sour. Spike stepped through the door, boots hitting the warped wood with slow, deliberate weight, and the room felt him before they saw him. Conversations died mid-word. Glasses paused halfway to mouths. The ceiling fan wheezed overhead, pushing thick heat around like it could do a damn thing about the night air.

Good.

He let the silence settle, let ‘em look. Slit-pupil eyes tracking him from the shadows, light catching on irises that burned yellow, green, copper. Coiled shapes hunched in booths, draped over barstools, all tensed muscle and twitchy instincts. They moved like what they were—snakes. Fast, sure. But fast didn’t mean shit if you couldn’t hit hard enough to matter.

He exhaled slow through his teeth, cigarette still hanging loose at the edge of his mouth as he made for the bar. Leather swept the dust behind him, dragging the weight of the moment in his wake.

The bartender, some sunbaked relic who looked like he’d been steeping in cheap mezcal for the better part of a decade, watched him come, expression unreadable. Smart bastard. Didn’t ask what he wanted, just reached for the bottle closest to hand.

Spike caught his wrist.

“Not that piss.” With a snort, he pushed the bloke’s arm aside, snagged something darker, meaner-looking. Uncorked it with his teeth and took a swig straight from the bottle. It burned smooth on the way down, like drinking fire with a taste. Not bad.

The tension at his back thickened, a slow coil winding tighter.

He grinned.

“Right, then.” He turned to the room, arms spreading wide like a bloke making a toast. “Who here’s tired of bein’ nobody?”

Silence.

Then, from the back came a bit of movement. Slow, deliberate. A hulking figure leaned forward, arms braced on the scarred table, forearms scaled like a lizard’s belly. A grin cut sharp across his face, too many teeth packed in too tight.

“You lost, gringo?” Thick accent, slow and weighted. Like he wanted to taste the insult before spitting it out.

Spike tilted his head, looking him over proper now. Big. Built like a bloke who thought strength was somethin’ you could stack like bricks.

“You lot are,” Spike said, taking another swig. “Thought I might find one or two snakes with a spine, but-” He sighed through his teeth. “Might’ve been optimistic.”

The leader’s grin widened, jagged, forked tongue flickering out. A ripple of movement—others shifting, reacting. The air tightened, humming with that fine-edged anticipation.

“You got guts,” the Culebra said, rising to his full height. Towered over the rest of them, easy six-five, shoulders like a brick wall. “Don’t mean you’ll leave with ‘em.”

The hissing chorus behind him slithered its approval. Some stood, flanking him, all slow, measured threat.

Spike raised an eyebrow. 

“Guts, brains, bit of style—I’ve got it all.” He stepped forward, bottle swinging lazy in his loose grip. “What I don’t have is time to waste on a pack of quick-footed nothings who think they’re gods just ‘cause they don’t trip over their own feet.”

That got a reaction. The leader’s jaw tensed, nostrils flaring.

“Big talk,” he said, voice going low. “For a dead man.”

Spike’s grin sharpened.

“Not dead enough.”

The stipid snake lunged.

Fast. He’d give ‘em that. But not fast enough.

Spike sidestepped smooth, weight shifting on instinct, and caught the bastard mid-motion, fingers closing tight around his throat. The sound of it hitting home, flesh on flesh, with a grip like iron—echoed through the bar, followed by the crack of a body hitting wood.

The leader choked, claws raking at Spike’s arm, but they scraped harmless over leather. Spike leaned in, voice dropping to something cold, something cruel.

“That all you’ve got, mate?” He squeezed, just a fraction. Just enough to hear the faint pop of strain in the bastard’s windpipe. “Speed’s a neat trick. Shame it don’t mean shit when you’re weak as piss.”

Then he threw him.

One-handed, easy as tossing a sack of rubbish. The Culebra hit the nearest table with a crash, splinters flying, the impact rattling glasses off shelves.

Spike turned back to the rest of them, bottle raised.

“Anyone else fancy a go?” His grin was sharp as a blade. “Or are you lot just as pathetic as him?”

The silence stretched, the whole room caught on a knife’s edge.

Then, one of the younger ones—lean, twitchy, hunger burning in his too-bright eyes—stepped forward, hands raised.

“What do you want?”

Spike took a swig, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Now we’re gettin’ somewhere.” Spike rolled his shoulders, casual as anything, like he hadn’t just put their so-called leader through a table. Let the silence stretch out, let ‘em sit in it, let ‘em think. The young one at the front, barely more than a hatchling, still had that hungry, reckless light in his eye. Should’ve known better than to open his mouth. “I’m seeing you’re in need of a leader.”

“And that’s supposed to be you?” the whelp asked, weight shifting forward like he was ready to pounce if the answer weren’t to his liking. “Why would we follow a Nosferat?”

Spike snorted.

“Because this Nosferat knows what it takes to win,” he said, dragging the words out slow, rolling them over his tongue like a man savoring a good whiskey. “And you lot—” he let his gaze cut across them, taking in the wary glances, the fists half-clenched at sides, the way a few of ‘em still looked like they wanted to make something of it. “You lot wouldn’t know how to win if it crawled up your arse and bit down.”

He pushed off the bar, flicking the ash from his cigarette, stride lazy, almost thoughtless as he stepped closer. Didn’t need to posture. Didn’t need to loom. They felt it. He saw it in the way their eyes tracked him, in the way their shoulders tensed even as their feet held ground. He could take ‘em all apart if he wanted. They knew it.

“I’ve killed two Slayers already, mate. And I’m about to make it a hat trick.”

The room went still.

The ones who’d been shifting suddenly stopped, the ones with mouths half-open let them click shut. Even their fearless leader, coughing blood into his palm a moment ago, had stopped flexing his claws, narrowed eyes locked on Spike like he was reevaluating, like the weight of those words had hit.

“Two Slayers?” The leader’s voice was a low, measured thing now, that mocking edge buried under calculation.

Spike nodded, dragging deep from his cigarette and exhaling slow through his teeth.

“London,” he said, voice easy, like he was reminiscing about a particularly good pint. “Late 1800s. New York, ‘77.” His lips twitched. “Not that the second one was much of a challenge. Bit of a disappointment, that one.”

The leader’s jaw flexed. His lot weren’t the kind to give respect easily, but Spike knew the look as well as he knew the sight of a jugular. That shift in posture, the way the others flicked glances toward each other, like they were reassessing, recalibrating.

“I’ve been around,” Spike continued, letting the words settle over them like the thick heat of the room, “seen the worst this world’s got to offer, and I’m still standing.” He let that hang for a moment, watching the way it landed before stepping in, leaning just slightly toward the leader, grin all teeth. “You join me, and you’re not just some wandering pack of scaly half-breeds anymore. You’re part of something bigger.”

He let his weight shift back, let the silence breathe just long enough before continuing, tone sliding somewhere just shy of temptation.

“Sunnydale’s got a Hellmouth,” he said, voice a purr, low and knowing. “Endless opportunities for power, blood, mayhem.” He spread his hands. “Stick with me, and we carve out a piece of it for ourselves.” Then, tilting his head, he let his gaze sweep the room, taking in the shoddy tables, the half-rotted walls, the dim, flickering light. “Or… you can keep rotting away in dumps like this, hoping some human doesn’t twig what you are and burn the lot of you to ash.”

That got ‘em.

The leader’s claws flexed, his jaw tight, but he wasn’t looking at Spike now. He was looking at his pack, at the ones watching him, waiting, calculating. Spike had seen this dance before—pack instinct, bloody predictable—and the outcome was as inevitable as sunrise.

The leader stepped forward, slow, measured, eyes locking with Spike’s.

“We’re in.”

Spike grinned, clapping a hand on the bastard’s shoulder, grip just tight enough to make sure they both knew it was there.

“Good lad.”

He turned, sweeping his gaze across the rest of them, voice carrying now, something dangerous curling at the edges.

“Sunnydale’s got a buffet waitin’ for us, but this isn’t just about the blood. It’s about takin’ what’s ours.” He let his lips curl, something slow and knowing. “You lot wanna be more than snakes? Stick with me. I’ll show you how to strike.”

A murmur rolled through the room, bodies shifting, eyes flicking toward one another, unspoken agreements passing in silence. Good.

Near the bar, soft hands clapped together, slow and rhythmic, like the start of a song only she could hear. Spike didn’t even raise an eyebrow, unsurprised by Dru’s habit of vanishing and reappearing unmatched by no one past his grandsire.

“The stars hum for you, my Spike,” Drusilla’s voice lilting, thick with satisfaction, head tilting to the side as if listening to something distant. “They see the rivers of red and the screams of joy.”

Spike chuckled, taking a slow drag from his cigarette, grin curling sharp at the edges.

“Yeah, love.” He exhaled smoke, watching it curl up toward the rotting ceiling beams. “Let’s give the stars a show.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The last one crumbled in front of him, nothing but dust swirling lazy at his boots, still hot from where he'd kicked one of them straight into a wall five seconds ago. Xander let out a breath, slow and even, not the kind that followed a fight. More like the kind you gave after standing in line too long at the grocery store. His fingers flexed at his sides, stake in one hand, something worse in the other, though nothing sat in his palm.

His jacket barely had a scuff. 

Not a tear, not a crease out of place. He looked down at himself, took in the smooth sleeves, the clean jeans, the barely-dirtied sneakers, and something about it stuck in his ribs. He'd just torn through a pack of vamps like they were training dummies, and his body had reacted like it was just another Tuesday.

His pulse—if it even worked the way it was supposed to anymore—was steady, even. The last time he'd felt his heartbeat really go for it, he'd...

Well, he'd been fighting the Master.

His foot nudged at the dust, toe dragging a lazy line through it as he thought back to the fight.

Something had been off about the whole thing. Not hard. Not even close. Just weird, like a song played a half-beat too fast, like a video tape on fast forward. The vamps had been fast. Not stronger, not smarter, still went down like overripe fruit. But they zipped around like someone had pressed fast-forward. More than they should've. 

Almost twice as fast, maybe. 

Not much else had been different—same leather-heavy fashion choices, same smell of grave dirt, same stupid, overconfident grins. But the speed stuck. 

Itched at something in the back of his brain.

And then—

He frowned.

One of them had yelled something. Right before he’d turned them into a pile of former problems. Not the usual snarls about blood and death and all the creative ways they’d murder him, no. Something else.

Xander rolled the words over in his head, chasing them like an itch he couldn't scratch.

His lip twitched.

A snort spilled out of his thrtoat.

“Spanish vampires. That’s... huh. That’s new.”

He swiped at his jacket, knocking the last of the dust loose, then gave his shoulders a shake. Tension didn't roll out, because there wasn't any to begin with. That was the part that should bother him. The part that should sit wrong.

But it didn’t.

He turned toward town, pace easy, hands sliding into his pockets as the night swallowed the alley behind him.