Outside a red building at 301 Chicon, a blue, hand-painted siren glowers with a snake wrapped around her neck. Inside, Nixie Vly sells homegrown herbs - meant for spells, not consumption, the label on each bag makes clear - along with tarot cards, resin incense, and other occult paraphernalia, and does tattoos alongside business partner Rachel Kolar, who painted the outdoor sign.

Forget whatever ominous images of witches and inked-up bikers this business model might conjure in your brain. As the slogan on the building's green door declares, the Serpent Tattoo and Occult Shop aims to help.

Soft-launched in September and officially opened (of course) on Halloween, the business was a longtime dream of Vly's, though one they figured they'd realize much later - "when I'm old," they laugh. But when she and her True Blue Tattoo coworker Kolar learned in July that the Airport Boulevard shop wouldn't relocate after shuttering due to the I-35 expansion, they got to work opening a space dedicated to human connection. (True Blue's original location is still operating on Red River.)

"Getting a tattoo can be a very deeply healing experience, and something that people do to mark a moment in time in their life or their development," Vly says. She would know; she got her first at age 38, as a schoolteacher trying to escape an abusive relationship, and the experience was so transformative that she resolved to learn the practice herself.

"It's a really intimate experience," they say, 10 years later. "Not just actually applying a tattoo to somebody, but going through the process of designing it with them and teasing out what is important about the image that they chose, and making that as healing and empowering as it possibly can be."

"I've had a lot of clients become really close friends of mine because it's a really strong emotional bond," adds Kolar, who's been tattooing for 27 years. "You become a part of their story. It'll stay with them forever."

Vly - the Mulder to Kolar's Scully, the latter jokes - finds similar empowerment in vodou, tarot, and other Afro-Caribbean spiritual practices. She likens them to Western forms of organized religion as strategies for understanding the world around her, but says they feel more open-minded and less hierarchical.

"I'm interested in many worlds, cultures, and the connections between them," Vly says. "That's part of why the Serpent is our name, because it's a symbol you see across mystical traditions in the world."

Since the Serpent opened, Vly says she's helped a customer find a way to empower their daughter as she moved into adulthood, while another person came in looking to support their partner through the loss of a pet.

Kolar's True Blue regulars have already checked out the new space as well. "That shop was kind of my baby," she says of the Airport business. "I painted the entire outside of that building myself and everything inside. So I was pretty crushed when I found out we weren't moving. But I think ultimately, this is so great. I love what we're doing, and I think it's just sort of meant to be."