Backfire - Spander Files

happen in an alleyway. Next to the body of the rapist they had killed.
Xander broke away. “Not here,” he pleaded with the vampire.
Spike looked confused for a moment, then he nodded. He took Xander’s hand and
guided him home. To Spike’s home.
13
Coming Home
As it turned out, they were only four blocks from an abandoned factory. Xander
knew instantly that it had, until recently, been filled with Spike’s minions. The
place had the stench of death. It was eerily quiet and, Xander wasn’t positive, but he
thought that there were a few dead bodies piled into clumps in a couple of the
darker corners.
Spike still held his hand. They walked through a couple large rooms, one with a
long rectangular table surrounded by many tall-backed chairs. It was an oddly
formal addition to the dust and dankness that made up the factory. Xander
wondered briefly what they had made here when it was functioning, but abruptly
ended that train of thought when it landed on creepy looking dolls whose presence
on the Hellmouth made them come alive and eat their owners. He really had to stop
with the late night horror movies whose writers probably didn’t have much of an
imagination, but probably lived on their own Hellmouth somewhere and were just
documenting facts.
Then they rounded a corner and Xander was being pulled down a flight of stairs.
Oh, goody. I’m being taken into the dark basement of an abandoned factory by an
evil vampire. Willingly. When did this become my life? … Oh, yeah.
The room was pitch black. Spike was standing in front of him, one hand on
Xander’s arm, fingers of the other hand rubbing the burning scar on his neck.
Xander heard Spike take a deep breath, then let it out like a sigh. It was quite
uncharacteristic of him.
“You alright?” Xander stepped up closer to him and wrapped his arms around the
vampire’s waist.