An average evening. The sun has long retired. He enters the Bronze and settles into a sweaty booth near the door, nurses a bad American beer and surveys the clientele. He has become a selective eater, with a type in mind.
Nearing midnight, he chooses. It is a woman, young but not too young, smelling slightly of bourbon and strongly of uningested cocaine. He waits until she has exited the building before he abandons his unfinished beverage and follows.
Outside, he allows the woman 20 paces of lead. He smells her desperation and longing, and observes dispassionately as she turns down an alley less than two blocks from the Bronze.
He hovers for a few seconds in the shadow of the streetlights. A few early stars. Full moon, blue. A good night for killing. A good night for him.
When he judges he has hesitated long enough, he steps into the alley and slinks up behind the woman as she unwraps a plastic baggy. His timing is good; he attacks and latches on like a newborn for sustenance, before she has time to freshly pollute her bloodstream.
She is long dead when a scraping sounds from behind him, and he angles the body and himself to an acute degree. Ah, just his luck. The unwelcome face of Xander Harris shines aster-pale at him. With a grimace of annoyance, Spike retracts his fangs and slides the woman's body to the ground.
"Spike! You're killing again!"
Typically, Xander comes up with the most foolish lines in a time of crisis. Spike smirks and negligently straightens his cuff. Good, he thinks, no blood stains to wash out. Almost as an afterthought, he addresses Xander. "What's it to you? For instance, what are you going to do about it?"
"I'm gonna, I'm gonna," Xander flounders. "I'm gonna tell Buffy!" He edges backward, stumbles over a broken brick, turns and bolts, but not fast enough, never fast enough.
He is a handful of paces from the street when Spike circles in front of him. "Big man, you're going to tell the slayer, are you." It isn't a question.
Xander's stake clatters on the cement.
Satisfied, Spike lets the body drop to the sticky pavement at his feet and strolls off down the street. Buffy and the others will see the wounds, assume some generic creature of the night bears responsibility, and take out their grief on his hapless fellows. He will be sure to help them.
He'd linger a bit and savor his triumph, but he doesn't want to be late for his date with Buffy.