Quite a popular character in the Buffyverse is the vampire formerly known as William the Bloody. He even got his own comic book. The name “Spike” is actually a nickname inspired in one of the forms of torture preferred by the vampire. He would use railroad spikes to prick his victims with, bleeding for hours before killing them.

Sired by Drusilla, Spike is actually the youngest of the vampire gang formed by Angelus, Darla, Drusilla and himself. Being the youngest would mean he is the least powerful of the four, but what he lacked in power he seemed to make up in viciousness. Single-handedly he took the life of two Slayers, a prowess that many ancient vampires and demons still respect.

When Spike first came to Sunnydale and thus into Buffy's life, he was just a murderous beast trying to heal his long time lover, Drusilla, and destroy the Slayer in the process. Yet, as things unfolded, with the reappearance of Angelus, Spike found himself in need to ally with Buffy and the Scooby Gang in order to stop Angelus from destroying the world and also to get Drusilla back at his side. They succeeded in the matter and as Spike left Sunnydale, Buffy and friends thought they had seen the last of him. However he returned after Drusilla left him for some demon.

Through a period of time Spike found himself incapacitated to harm any life. This was caused by a chip which was implanted into his brain by The Initiative. This rendered Spike helpless against the attacks of humans but allowed him to kill demons and other unholy creatures. Since he was a fanatic of destruction, he allied himself with the Scooby Gang to get his kicks out of killing demons. Eventually the chip was removed from his brain, but Spike had grown fond of the Slayer and their little adventures.

Once regarded as one of the craziest and most vicious vampires Spike found himself in the predicament of being attracted to the very Slayer. He stuck around even when the Scooby Gang was sick of him and he helped them on a number of occasions. Most of the times he did it for his own convenience, but soon he discovered that he actually liked being with the good guys. He fell in love with Buffy and they started a turbulent relationship that was based more in sexual attraction than anything else. When Buffy finally decided to put a stop to their encounters, Spike left Sunnydale to look for a way of making Buffy love him. And so he came up with the idea of getting himself a soul, just as Angel had one, so maybe Buffy would see him as a good man. However, to get the soul, he had to suffer through tortures in the hands of powerful demons and when he finally got it; the burden of his crimes sent him into a mentally unstable status. He returned to Sunnydale almost completely out of his mind.

Buffy sought Spike's help one more time and he was a key element in the battle between the Slayers (see the article) and The First. Spike was in fact sacrificed to spare Buffy and friends from death and to finally defeat The First.

This was not the end of the vampire, since he managed to return in the form of a ghost and he became part of Angel's crew at Wolfram and Hart. Eventually he regained physical form but he never went back to Buffy.