Spike (born William Pratt) was a famous and widely feared vampire, well-known among both humans and demons for having faced and killed two Slayers throughout his unlife and for his history of torturing his victims with railroad spikes (which is what it is rumored the moniker of "Spike" is derived from); in fact, his reputation for evil and bloodshed was second only to that of his grandsire Angelus'. In his human life, William was an unsuccessful and unappreciated romantic poet known as William the Bloody, for his "bloody awful" poetry, though after he became a vampire, that moniker was repurposed to imply he was very violent. After being sired by Drusilla, he reinvented himself and terrorized Europe alongside Drusilla, Angel and Darla throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.