He had no routine back in Sunnyhell. He drank on impulse and dropped in on Buffy on impulse. Liked being a free spirit. That wouldn’t work in the Trail, gave Harris, Nibblet and Fred too much thinking time. Too many hours to get all self-pitying. He gave up free spirit and forced a routine onto them.

 

He sparred with them for an hour everyday, no excuses accepted.

 

Once a week, he raided the goat cave, drained a goat and handed it over to Fred. She roasted it and eked the strips out between her and Dawn, making them last until his next visit to the goat cave. She was resourceful, was Fred. Used goat sinewy to stitch the furry hides together into a sleeping rug.

 

Harris wouldn’t eat the kill, stayed on the watery gruel. The new beard didn’t hide the haggard lines of his face. Sunken cheeks and baggy skin on formerly well-padded jowls. Spike cared less, sparred with the sluggish boy harder than he sparred with the girls.

 

Three times a week, he tried to get in on the betting in the gamming pit. Jude politely told him to put up his indigo band or get lost. Spike wasn’t getting enough blood, couldn’t risk losing his Earner Status. He didn’t put his band up and didn’t stop pestering Jude.

 

“Who is that guy you keep ragging on?” Xander asked during another unsuccessful hour at pit-side.

 

“Jude. Chief Runner and Bookmaker Extraordinaire,” he watched Jude take an Earned’s yellow band from an Earner. “Bloody ugly little tosser,” said with a sizeable helping of sour grapes.

 

First thing every morning, he went into the sewage cave with Xander, Fred and Dawn. Turned his back and smoked while they found nooks around the steaming trenches and did their business. He hated first thing in the morning and would’ve waited outside the cave, except attacks sometimes happened in the cave. A human-demon hybrid got pushed into the trench the other day. Dissolved in the bleachy smelling refuse before his Earner could throw him a line.

 

They were out of bottled water so the next stop was the tap in the Town Square. It served the First Rankers and the Unbonded and always had a long queue. Hours of standing around to fill three bottles of water.

 

“You’re using up the water too quickly,” he complained.

 

“We’re using a litre each a day,” Fred dropped sterilizer tablets into the 1L bottles of water, “and some of that goes on tooth-brushing and hand washing.”

 

True enough. They didn’t waste water, bathing was water wastage. The kids were more than grubby, were ripe in their stained and dirt-stiffened uniforms. Scratched their arses all the time.

 

Ripe and sullen, was Harris. Sat in his place against the wall at bedtime with Fred and Dawn between him and Spike. Sometime during the night, the three would pile onto him: Dawn laying with her shoulders on his outstretched legs, Fred with her head on his shoulder and Harris with his on the other shoulder, restless.

 

So went their routine, shiftless and frustrating.

 

Bedtime stories were always about the lost book. Day in and day out, Nibblet asked how they’d get back home. He’d say, “we move to higher ground.” She’d ask, “When,” and he’d say, “No hurry is there? Not like The Slayer’s messaged us yet.” Day in and day out, same weak plan.

 

At the start of their fifth week on the First Ranking, a few things happened to push Spike into a hurry.

 

Dawn found fleas in the sleeping rug, checked herself over and squealed in upset at the bugs crawling in the waistband of her trousers. “Oh God, oh my God,” she ripped at the cuffs of her tunic and yeah - fleas in the seams.

 

Fred and Harris had fleas too.

 

“Doesn’t it freak you out, being flea eaten,” Dawn asked him, high pitched.

 

“I don’t catch fleas, pet,” he glanced at Dawn’s long braid, “or nits. ‘m undead, don’t catch anything, thankfully.”

 

No, the fleas alone didn’t bother him. But then someone in the cave coughed. He waited for the next cough, trailed it to a sweaty human in the corner. The human was dead by morning, his corpse traded to Tomb Robbers for two gold pieces. Nightfall, and five more had died: three humans and two part-humans.

 

Spike shouldered his holdall and picked up his sword. “Get your gear together.”

 

“Where are we going?” Xander asked.

 

“Away from the Black Death,” he redeemed the rug from the next nook where Fred had thrown it.

 

Xander lounged on his backpack, sullen and disbelieving. “Plague? Oh come on, Spike.” He scratched his chin with his thumb, scraping the beard that was as prickly as the boy himself.

 

“Stay and die. No great loss to me,” he made his way to the exit, Dawn and Fred behind him. “Wait here,” he said, once at the cave mouth.

 

He scanned the cave, saw his target and stepped over to him. “Thought you might like this,” he spread the rug beside the talkative Earner.

 

The Earner stroked the thick beige fur. “There is sickness in our home.”

 

“Your home maybe. I’m moving up in the world.”

 

“Perhaps you will be more fortunate than I was,” the Earner smiled like he didn’t think fortune would be any kinder to Spike.

 

He lit a cigarette and regretfully passed it over to the Earner, who took it without delay. “Housing board turned down your application, did they?” Spike fished.

 

The demon lay on the rug, turned onto his side and pulled one of his Earned close, smoking over her. “You need only ask, Amo.”

 

“Gave you one of my few fags. That’s asking.”

 

“You must fight a Custodian to earn a higher Ranking.”

 

He nodded, didn’t know what in hell a Custodian was. “These Custodians, they just float about the place?”

 

The Earner looked at him long and amused. “The next Bidding is in four nights. Register your Bid for a higher Ranking with Jude and he will take care of the rest.”

 

“Cheers,” he snapped the half-smoked cigarette from the Earner’s fingers and headed back for the cave mouth.

 

Harris was present and gloomy when he got there. His mood didn’t improve none as they built a fire out on the ledge or as they settled down around it.

 

“Face that way if you’re gonna have a sour face on all night.”

 

The boy snarled back at him. “Can face any way I damn well choose.”

 

He stared at Xander across the lively flames, going to smoke at the ledge railings when the hard edge of his anger became a hard edge he didn’t want to be sporting anywhere near Dawn.

 

Anger was passion and his dick didn’t know dick about separating one kind of passion from another, Spike told himself.

 

*    *     *     *

 

As per routine, they went down to the goat cave the next day. It was empty, and the sheep cave next to it was also empty. Nothing in the elk cave either. Spike kicked the wall, ranted in the echoey cave. Bugger it dammit and fuck it all. He couldn’t fight on empty, would likely get pulped. Scowling, he joined Xander, Fred and Dawn at the mouth of the cave and averted his scowl from their pumping jugulars.

 

“Let’s get you fruit for brekkies, Bit.”

 

Dawn got no breakfast because the fruit stall was encircled by an aggressive knot of guards taking instructions from Jude.

 

“May I be of assistance, Mi Amo?” Asked Jude.

 

Prick, Spike fumed, smiling. “Funny you should ask. Came to register a Bid for Second Ranking.”

 

“Second Ranking is full, sir. You will have to Bid higher or wait until there are four spaces available on Second Ranking.”

 

“Wait how long?”

 

“Eight weeks,” Jude picked at a wart on his cheek. “Perhaps nine.”

 

“Register me for Third,” it was almost a squeak.

 

*    *    *    *

 

This was push coming to shove. Nothing for it but to shove back. He went into the sewage cave with Xander, Fred and Dawn, but didn’t leave with them.

 

“Won’t be a tic,” he said, “go warm up by the fire.”

 

Xander lingered by the cave mouth. “You don’t do number two’s…or number ones even.”

 

“I like the stench in here. Clears the head,” he said. “Go.”

 

Xander went.

 

Spike strolled through the dimly lit cave, stood in a corner. Soon, he was alone with two others. First one was part-demon, startled when he grabbed her on her way to the exit. Bitter blood, didn’t do much for him. A step down from goat’s blood and that was foul.

 

Second one was all human, tying the drawstrings on his trousers as Spike rounded the corner into his nook.

 

“Well look what I found,” he fanged at the boy.

 

Round eyes, cut off scream, heavenly blood. Senses awhirl, Spike tipped the bodies into the trench, sagged on the nearest wall and rolled out a raggedy chuckle.

 

*    *    *    *

 

He tried to look innocent when an Earner asked him if he’d seen the missing human later in the day.

 

“Mate, I got my own humans.”

 

There were six missing humans by the morning of the Bid, four missing part-humans. The First Rankers accused the Tomb Robbers in their midst, “for none is as untrustworthy as the tomb robbing beast,” they raged at the leader of the Tomb Robbers.

 

“It was not I,” said the Tomb Robber, jumping over the ledge railings to escape the vigilante group of Earners.

 

Spike came to the railing, watched as the mob gained on the Tomb Robber, Gang’ral at the head of the pack. Ten minutes of brutality later, the Tomb Robber was a smudge on the Main Floor path. The Gang’ral divided up his Earned among the mob, “in recompense,” the Gang’ral said.

 

“What did he do?” Dawn asked.

 

Spike placed his arm around her shoulders and turned her away from the railings, found a pair of dark brown stare fastened on him.

 

“Yeah, what did he do, Spike?”

 

He ignored Harris and sat across the fire from Fred, hiding a smirk when she said, “I think he’s been hunting Earned. Stupid thing to do because everyone knows you should never kill close to home.”

 

“Shouldn’t that be you should never kill humans, Fred?” Xander chucked a log on the fire, spraying Spike with sparky bits from it.

 

“There’s no humans here Xander, just Earners, Earned and Unbonded. Don’t think that being human makes you some kind of special, because it doesn’t, not in The Trail.”

 

Silence followed Dawn’s harshly spoken words.

 

*    *    *    *

 

"What excitement, Free Travelers, what excitement indeed. For tonight, we have a Ranking Bid,” Tresten threw his arms up and belly-laughed at the audience. They cheered.

 

Spike rolled his eyes.

 

Tresten crept from the center of the pit to a staircase, patting the air for silence. The spectators hushed and even Spike felt the suspense as Tresten fingered the loops in his ear and gazed at a ground level entrance to the pit.

 

“Tonight,” Tresten whispered, “Amo Spike…” he whipped round and grinned directly at Spike. “Stand up, Master Spike. Let Tresten’s people meet the stalwart vampire who would bypass Second Ranking in a Bid for Third.”

 

Spike bounced to his feet. Tresten and his people clapped, the captives in the cages craned their necks and the soldiers surrounding the pit sniggered.

 

"Amo Spike, meet the Custodian of the Third Ranking, " Tresten mounted the stairs to his front row seat and roared at the ground level entrance, “Dragon!”