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you mean, ‘You’re going to need it’? For what?”
    She grinned and shook loose. “Every evening we have a party and tonight you’re the guest of honor.” She turned to leave.
    The chalice ladled the fish stew into a bowl. The aroma of the bouillabaisse was a teaser compared to the wonderful scent of a thick blood stock, type O-positive, that she added from an insulated metal carafe. Another chalice—a bustier version of the previous one—poured mojitos from an enameled pitcher into short glass tumblers. This was the first decent meal I’d had all day, and after a second helping, I sopped at the last of the gelatinous redness with hunks of bread and washed it down with sips of the sweetened rum drink.
    Two chalices cleared the table. Thorne, Carmen’s male chalice, went around with a big pitcher and refilled glasses. This batch of mojitos had a better kick. Maybe it was the blending of different spices, a more potent rum, or something from the botánica.
    The sax, marimba, and guitar players paused and let the bongos and conga drums carry the rhythm.
    Antoine reappeared from the left side of the pavilion. Vertical red, black, and white stripes covered his torso. A wreath of leaves crowned his balding noggin. His broad lips gripped an unlit cigar. Glitter sparkled in his hair, mustache, and goatee. A necklace of cowrie shells glistened against the dark skin of his neck. He strutted in a cadence that matched the drumbeat, his thick legs parting his only attire, a blue sarong.
    The drumming softened to a rumble.
    A female chalice followed Antoine. Stripes of paint also covered her body.
    They stopped before the wall of palm fronds. She stepped around Antoine to place votive candles along the floor.
    Antoine pulled a butane barbecue lighter from his waistband and crouched to light the candles. After he lit the last one, he stood, put the lighter to the end of the cigar, sucked hard, and exhaled a dense puff of smoke. The smoke rolled through the air and spread a pungent tobacco smell.
    The drummers slapped their congas and started a loud Afro-Caribbean beat. The guitars, marimba, and saxophone joined in with a fast merengue.
    Antoine’s aura crackled around him. He no longer looked doughy and friendly but demanding and stern. “It’s time to make music,” he boomed louder than the conga drums, “and dance to beckon the goddess of beauty and sensuality, our exalted Oshún.”
    The beat reverberated inside me. I swirled my mojito and wondered about the dark sediment circling the bottom of thetumbler. Maybe what Carmen had bought in the botánica was in the drink. Something psychoactive. I hoped so.
    Jolie made her entrance from the left. She wore an iridescent loincloth the size of a napkin. Her red hair was fashioned into an octopus of braids. Jolie led six painted chalices, alternating male and female, who entered in a swaying gait. The rattles on their ankles and wrists shook with the rhythm. They carried censers that trailed plumes of smoldering tobacco, sage, marijuana, and sandalwood.
    Antoine stamped his feet and chanted, “Oshún.”
    The other vampires and chalices in the pavilion sprang to the floor and picked up the chant. Their orange and red auras pulsed in time to the music. They shimmied and writhed as if they were Pentecostal snake handlers. Breasts and buttocks quivered like so much flesh Jell-O.
    This was one party I couldn’t sit out. I downed the last of the mojito, jumped from the bench, and joined the dancing. Chalices pawed at my shirt and tossed it aside.
    I swung my arms and kicked with spastic abandon, doing the Chicano version of a frog-in-the-blender dance. I wasn’t sure of the point to all this but it was a great party.
    The wall of palm fronds began to shake. The music picked up speed. The chanting went faster and faster.
    “Oshún. Oshún.”
    With my eyes closed, I shouted, “Oshún,” over and over, enjoying myself until I realized that the music had stopped and I was the only