The chimes are always the first thing you hear.
Before the screams. Before the sighs.
Before the sweet-talking lies that make a woman forget she's dancing for danger, not delight.
They ring soft at first, like a whisper down your spine. And then louder, sharp and shivering, like silver teeth gnashing in the wind. My husband says the chimes speak in a language older than English — older than pain. I believe him. They gave us our powers. Our rhythm. Our way out.
I was the Southern girl, pink rose hair and dark skin that shimmered in the moonlight like oil on water. All human — or close enough in a world where folks don't blink twice at glowing eyes or shifting shadows. Supernatural here is like breathing — part of the air, part of the law, part of the problem. Some folks are born with magic. Some just rent it. Me? I didn't have a lick of it, unless you count good looks and luck.
My man looked like a myth someone dared to love — Irish-Asian, tall and tattooed, wild red hair and eyes like polished black stone — demon-black, the kind that reflect everything and reveal nothing. Said he was all human too, and I believed him cause it felt rude to assume otherwise. People who ask too many questions disappear. Hunters got tighter rules now, but the black market's still alive and bleeding.
His tattoos were chimes — not just pictures, but living art that moved when the wind touched him, like sound lived in his skin. Each one rang in a different tone if you pressed just right, like playing a haunted instrument only I knew how to love. I used to trace them like a melody. A secret score only I was allowed to play.
I always wanted tattoos growing up, but in the South, it wasn't easy to find an artist who'd work on Black skin, let alone someone with no coin and no connections. Back then, even getting ink was political — tied up in race, class, and survival. Folks thought tattoos were for criminals or bikers or men who didn't plan to live long. For women like me, it was seen as rebellion — or worse, an invitation. But when I saw his ink, I saw a map. A story. Something sacred. And I wanted in.
Sometimes I get lost in my own words, like I'm chasing smoke in a sunbeam. That's how it felt the day I met him — like I had stepped into someone else's story.
He was bleeding in a ditch behind my daddy's old barn. A group of men had left him for dead — not uncommon in our parts, especially when the ones left bleeding weren't exactly local, or fully human. Mississippi's always had its fair share of secrets — some buried in the soil, some dressed up and walking in broad daylight. You see all kinds here. Goblins that passed for preachers. Women who gave birth to shadows. And a whole lot of humans too, just trying to make sense of the chaos.
I didn't ask him what he was. That would've been rude. You don't ask a man what kind of magic runs through his veins — not unless you plan to bleed with him. He looked so vulnerable in that moment, so utterly helpless sprawled there in the dirt like a broken doll stitched out of secrets and bone. I just dragged his body inside, hands trembling, and poured peach whiskey down his throat — not to get him drunk, but because I thought it might soothe the pain. Folks around here always said peach had healing in it. In Southern folk medicine, peach bark was used for coughs, fevers, even to calm angry spirits. And the fruit itself? Symbol of long life, fertility, and in some stories, protection from demons. It was the only thing I had on hand that made sense.
Then I wrapped him in poultice and gauze, the way my mama taught me. Lavender for swelling. Comfrey for the skin. Just enough pressure to keep the bleeding in, not to choke the breath out. He didn't stir, but I remember thinking — if this man lives, I might just follow him anywhere.
See, my folks were medical practitioners — real hands-on people who dealt in blood, bone, healing arts, and hush money. Back during Jim Crow, and even long after, there weren't many doctors willing to treat folks like us — Black, poor, monstrous, or just plain inconvenient. So my family stayed. Not out of pride, but out of profit and necessity. You'd be amazed how many rich white folks in this state needed someone who could stitch up a bite mark or pull a cursed tooth without asking too many questions.
He opened his eyes and smiled like he already knew me, like my face was the first calm thing he'd seen in a long time. That night, before the storm rolled in, I kissed him — soft, unsure, and all too eager. It felt like I was breathing brand-new air, like the world had cracked open just to hand me a miracle. I don't know if it was mercy or madness or just me being a fool with my heart fluttering like a paper bird in a summer breeze, but it felt like fate.
His name was Kaito, and mine's Loretta — but folks used to call me Lettie. After he healed up, Kaito stayed around, helped tend the barn, learned how to wrap gauze the way Mama showed me.
We got close. Real close. One night, I slid into bed beside him — skin to skin, hearts thudding like thunder. He held me like I was fragile, touched me like a secret. Spoke soft, almost like a hymn.
Birth control wasn't something we could count on. I didn't trust the powders, teas, or those quiet-clinic injections. Heard too many horror stories — especially for girls like me. Access was scarce, consent even scarcer. Medicine came with strings, and sometimes scars.
So Kaito went in from the back, tender as ever. Thank God I had enough booty to bless the whole plan. It was awkward and sweet and clumsy and perfect. We laughed a little, gasped a lot, and held on like the world might end if we let go. Some say peach trees blossom when lovers do things right — maybe that's why I always smelled fruit on his skin afterward.
I don't even know if we meant to fall asleep like that, glowing and tangled in each other, but we did. And it felt like the stars were finally leaning in to hear my name.
My daddy found us in the morning, naked as truth, tangled up like sinners in a cautionary tale. I heard the click before I saw the iron — his old revolver cocked and aimed straight at Kaito's manhood.
"You got three seconds to pray, boy," Daddy growled.
Kaito yelped and yanked me behind him like he was the last defense between his balls and judgment day. "Sir, I swear to you on all nine of my past lives, I was being respectful! Mostly!"
"Don't do it, Daddy! Don't you dare! I love him!" I screamed, poking my head out from behind Kaito's shoulder.
Daddy didn't blink. Just spat on the floor and said, "If you love him so much, then go on. Leave."
Before I could so much as grab the blanket tighter, Mama came marching in with her apron still on and a cast iron skillet in hand. She didn't even blink at the scene. Just gave Daddy a sideways look and said, "Put the damn gun down, Earl. Breakfast is getting cold."
Daddy grumbled, but lowered the revolver.
Kaito let out a shaky breath like he'd just escaped damnation. I was still clutching the blanket, heart pounding, while Mama wiped her hands on a dish towel and muttered, "Lawd, I knew this day was coming."
We packed that same morning. Didn't take much — a suitcase, a string of hope, and Kaito's busted pride. As for my folks, they didn't raise a fuss. Mama gave me a kiss on the forehead, handed me a jar of salve, and with a little smirk, slipped Kaito a pack of condoms — said they were new, and she'd rather we be safe than stupid. Daddy didn't say a word, just tapped his boot on the porch and watched us go.
Truth is, I think they were relieved. Not because they liked Kaito — Mama still called him 'that red-haired heathen' under her breath — but because they knew I was gone for good. Around that time, condoms were just starting to be sold openly in drugstores, after decades of bans and back-alley dealing. Birth control was still taboo for women like me, but men were starting to get options — if they had the nerve to ask for them. Mama must've read about it in a newspaper or heard from the church ladies. Either way, slipping that pack to Kaito was her quiet way of saying, 'I don't approve, but I won't let y'all be fools, either.'
After we left home, Kaito and I joined up with a traveling circus — the kind that set up just outside town limits and smelled of burnt sugar, diesel, and secrets. He played chimes and otherworldly instruments that didn't belong to any culture you could name. I danced, told fortunes, painted faces, and turned stories into spells. Folks didn't know whether to clap or cross themselves. They said we were haunted. They weren't wrong.
The circus taught us survival. How to move without leaving footprints. How to charm a crowd and vanish before they remembered what they gave away. But the road wears down even the strongest bones. Eventually, we circled back to my home state.
We bought a patch of land under Kaito's name — easier that way, fewer questions when the deed was held by a soft-spoken man with demon eyes and charm to spare. That's when we started building real roots.
That's where the chimes came in.
My husband had the idea first. Said people respond to sound. That if you hit the right frequency, you could melt a person's fear or bend their will. And truth be told, he wasn't wrong. There's history in that — sound used in war drums, in healing rituals, even in hoodoo rootwork. African griots believed stories were spells, and Appalachian lore said wind chimes could ward off witches and restless spirits. Goblins, some say, used to whisper secrets through hollow reeds strung like bells, tricking humans into trading memories for gold.
He'd hang the chimes just so — copper ones, bone ones, even glass ones etched with strange little runes we never spoke aloud. I didn't really understand them, not at first. Thought maybe it was some kind of New Age medicine, like the sound baths or crystal bowls the carnival psychics used to whisper about. But when folks started lining up, offering good money just to sit and listen, I stopped asking questions. It brought in cash, and Kaito swore it worked. And once those chimes started ringing, people changed. They calmed. They obeyed. They forgot.
Sound wasn't just sound. It was seduction. It was spellwork.
That's how we built our business. Kaito ran the back end — the rituals, the clients, the chimes. I ran the front. The smile, the shows, the glitter and heat. I was just a dancer, or at least that's how I started. Dressed in silk, vinyl, lace — whatever it took to slip inside someone's imagination. Sometimes I was a damsel, sometimes a dominatrix. Most nights, I couldn't tell where the performance ended and I began.
You're probably wondering: is this the part where I tell you he was my pimp? That I was tricked, or trapped, or trafficked?
No, baby.
He never sold my body. Not exactly. What I gave away was... deeper. Slicker than sweat. He sold pieces of my soul, and I let him.
Because what we offered wasn't sex. It was ritual.
And rituals have rules. And rules have prices.
This is the part where we started taking a few lives. It was the early 1960s — a time when folks wore secrets like perfume, and murder was just another ritual in the right kind of hands. Yeah — we were a murder couple. Just didn't wear matching shirts about it.