Set in 19th Century Argentina, this is a story about an Italian female vampire from the Middle Ages, Bellucina, and her vampire husband, João Guimarães, a 16th Century Portuguese conquistador with whom she has navigated the world for centuries in a phantom ship. They arrive in Buenos Aires in 1871 amid a plague epidemic.
As the two vampires rampage through the city leaving a trail of victims drained of blood, the police desperately search for what they believe is an ordinary serial killer, not realizing they are dealing with the supernatural. At the same time, the city’s wealthy flee the plague, leaving their mansions empty in Buenos Aires’ then posh neighborhood of San Telmo, allowing the immigrants and poor to move in, coinciding with the birth of tango in secret underground nightclubs.
Even as she remains in love with her immortal husband, Bellucina falls deeply in love with an Argentinian woman, Angelina, whose fiancée, Franco, a jealous and resentful mafioso, is under pressure from the police. With the authorities in a panic over people dying from the plague as well as the bloody murders, Franco and his goons decide to kill the vampires. He first asks for help from the catholic church, which is immediately denied, although the cardinal of Buenos Aires refers him to a humble priest, who had some experience dealing with supernatural cases. The priest agrees to help by summoning the Supreme Candombe Sorcerer, from Uruguay of African descent, whose ritual incantations are of an extreme power to confront vampires and all kinds of demonic beasts. The final battle involves an army of gaucho ghosts, vampires, and humans.
The love triangle between the two vampires and Angelina develops by reviving memories from different past lives from different eras, meeting again in this present life. The romance ends with the most unexpected fate: one can love more than one person in a lifetime, especially vampires.
Blood and Tango is a feminist vampire story about a plague, immigration, and the birth of tango, with dancing, passion, love, eroticism, the supernatural, and queer and polyamorous elements.
