The Dragon Done It by Mike Resnick, Eric Flint

a clear opinion of how likely he thought that was to occur. ". . . you're going to have to negotiate. If you can agree on boundaries there's no reason why you can't share the city." His voice suddenly belonged again to the lover she'd lost with the change. "Call me, please, before you do anything."
    It was the only message on the tape.
    "Why," Celluci asked as it rewound, his gaze taking in the cuts and the bruising and the filth, "do I get the impression that it's 'the other guy' Fitzroy's talking about?"
    Vicki tried to shrug. Her shoulders refused to cooperate. "It's my city, Mike. It always has been. I'm going to take it back."
    He stared at her for a long moment then he shook his head. "You heard what Henry said. You can't win. You haven't been . . . what you are, long enough. It's only been fourteen months."
    "I know." The rich scent of his life prodded the Hunger and she moved to put a little distance between them.
    He closed it up again. "Come on." Laying his hand in the center of her back, he steered her towards the stairs. Put it aside for now, his tone told her. We'll argue about it later. "You need a bath."
    "I need . . ."
    "I know. But you need a bath first. I just changed the sheets."
    * * *
    The darkness wakes us all in different ways, Henry had told her. We were all human once and we carried our differences through the change.
    For Vicki, it was like the flicking of a switch; one moment she wasn't, the next she was. This time, when she returned from the little death of the day, an idea returned with her.
    Four hundred and fifty-odd years a vampire, Henry had been seventeen when he changed. The other had walked the night for perhaps as long—her gaze had carried the weight of several lifetimes—but her physical appearance suggested that her mortal life had lasted even less time than Henry's had. Vicki allowed that it made sense. Disaster may have precipitated her change but passion was the usual cause.
    And no one does that kind of never-say-die passion like a teenager.
    It would be difficult for either Henry or the other to imagine a response that came out of a mortal not a vampiric experience. They'd both had centuries of the latter and not enough of the former to count.
    Vicki had been only fourteen months a vampire but she'd been human thirty-two years when Henry'd saved her by drawing her to his blood to feed. During those thirty-two years, she'd been nine years a cop—two accelerated promotions, three citations, and the best arrest record on the force.
    There was no chance of negotiation.
    She couldn't win if she fought.
    She'd be damned if she'd flee.
    "Besides . . ." For all she realized where her strength had to lie, Vicki's expression held no humanity. ". . . she owes me for Phil."
     
    Celluci had left her a note on the fridge.
    Does this have anything to do with Mac Eisler?
    Vicki stared at it for a moment then scribbled her answer underneath.
    Not anymore.
     
    It took three weeks to find where the other spent her days. Vicki used old contacts where she could and made new ones where she had to. Any modern Van Helsing could have done the same.
    For the next three weeks, Vicki hired someone to watch the other come and go, giving reinforced instructions to stay in the car with the windows closed and the air conditioning running. Life had an infinite number of variations but one piece of machinery smelled pretty much like any other. It irritated her that she couldn't sit stakeout herself but the information she needed would've kept her out after sunrise.
     
    "How the hell did you burn your hand?"
    Vicki continued to smear ointment over the blister. Unlike the injuries she'd taken in the alley, this would heal slowly and painfully. "Accident in a tanning salon."
    "That's not funny."
    She picked the roll of gauze up off the counter. "You're losing your sense of humor, Mike."
    Celluci snorted and handed her the scissors. "I never had one."
     
    "Mike, I wanted to warn you, I won't be