So I heard about this big fat all-original vampire anthology, 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories, that Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg, and Martin H. Greenberg were putting together for Barnes & Noble, and I figured I could whip up something quickly. If they were looking for a hundred all-new stories, how picky could they be?

(Actually, pickier than I'd thought; they got way over a hundred stories submitted.)

So I sat back and tried to think of a characteristic of vampires that I could base a story on that other people weren't going to run into the ground in the other ninety-nine stories. Vampires suck blood, they have hypnotic powers, they live forever, yeah, been there, done that... and they're nocturnal. They're awake all night, and sleep during the day; assuming a vampire who doesn't want any trouble, is there some occupation where that's useful? Night watchman is obvious but boring, I couldn't really see how to get a good and short enough story out of a cop or a fireman, and until right now it didn't occur to me that I could have probably done something good with a night nurse in a hospital, but what I thought of -- maybe because I've had a few household emergencies -- was a plumber.

Et voila!

And of course, when I collected all my vampire stories, I had to include this one, so it's available in In the Blood, as well.

That's it; here's your list of handy exits:

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