The giant vengeance demon known to his friends as Lloyd crashed his hand into Spike's chest, grinning evilly.
"Very well, we will return to you, your soul!"
In the split second before the golden light exploded from his hand into Spike's chest, far away in a distant dimension, an alarm bell started shrieking in what looked strangely like a huge filing room.
A small, green, eight-armed demon wearing khaki pants and a button down white shirt jumped at the sound, falling out of his comfortable swivel chair to the floor.
"Shit!" he yelped, looking at the sheet of purple paper labeled "Urgent" that had just appeared on his desk. "Another soul. For the sake of all that is evil, what's with these people?"
Grumbling, he picked himself up off the floor, one hand holding the memo, one adjusting his pocket protector and two more brushing off the back of his pants.
"One soul to be restored to a vampire," he read off the memo. "William Knightsbury, aka William the Bloody, aka Spike."
He snorted. "Spike. What an idiotic name."
He headed down the well-lit rows of filing cabinets, peering at the labels as he passed and muttering to himself.
"First it's those gypsies and that other vampire with the stupid name. Cherub or whatever it was. Dumb. Then he misplaces the damn thing and its back here again. Then once more to reinserting it. Vampires with souls. Ridiculous."
Finally reaching the cabinet he wanted, he opened the drawer and looked inside. His face fell, and he pulled out a singed file folder. No soul.
"Shit," he snapped again. Where the Hell was it? He dug around in the file cabinet. Still no soul. Now what was he going to do?
The Powers That Be would be really upset with him if this Spike character didn't get back his soul. Or a soul at least.
He headed back to the head of the file cabinets and yanked out a soul, giggling as he stuffed it into a container and threw it into the tube.
Back on Earth, Spike's eyes glowed gold as he was given a soul.
The soul of a small lapdog named Spuffy.