Literature / The Crow: Wicked Prayer

"You already know how the vision begins, Dan—with the blue eyes of a Crow"

The Crow: Wicked Prayer is a 2000 novel written by Norman Partridge. It is the fifth and penultimate instalment in a series of six Crow Tie In Novels, being preceded by The Crow Temple Of Night and proceeded by The Crow Hellbound.

An ex-drifter named Dan Cody is on his way to propose to his girlfriend Leticia Dreams the Truth Hardin, a half-Crow Native who runs a small Arizona tourist trap called the Spirit Song Trading Post. Unfortunately for Dan, a pair of goth occultists named Johnny Church and Kyra Damon have beaten him to Leticia, whose unusual blue eyes they need for their quest to steal the mythical powers of the crows. After killing Dan and Leticia, the evil duo take Leticia's eyes, seal her and her boyfriend's bodies in an old refrigerator, and resume their journey, guided by Kyra's grimoire and a sassy Shrunken Head named Raymondo.

A single crow fights its way through the magical defenses that Kyra had placed around the corpses of the murdered lovers, and resurrects Dan as the new Crow, so that he can not only avenge his and Leticia's deaths, but also put a stop to Kyra's plans, which not only endanger the crow and its brethren, but also the very souls of every prior unjustly murdered mortal who the crows had revived as a Crow.

The book was very loosely adapted into a 2005 Direct to Video film of the same name that was written and directed by Lance Mungia, and co-written by Jeff Most and Sean Hood. It starred Tara Reid, David Boreanaz, Edward Furlong, and Emmanuelle Chriqui.

Tropes:

• Abusive Parents: Kyra's father beat her, once hitting her so hard that she was Punched Across the Room.
• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • As Johnny is stuffing Dan and Leticia's bodies into an old refrigerator, Raymondo remarks, "Just goes to show my mother was right. It's dangerous to play in old refrigerators." Despite how lame the joke is, Johnny still laughs at it.
  • Doctor Carlisle gives Dan a six-shooter that allegedly belonged to Jesse James, and notes that it may bring Dan luck. When Dan points out that Jesse James died from being shot in the back, Carlisle responds with, "So did you, Dan." After a long, awkward pause, the two laugh.
  • Johnny screws with Father Cooke by holding him at gunpoint and asking him if he worships Satan. In a panic, Father Cooke blurts out, "I'm nonsectarian!" Johnny is amused, clapping the minister on the shoulder while laughing, "Good answer, preach."
• The Alleged Car: Dan's Jeep is old and battered, with a busted headlight, a twisted bumper, and "345,000 miles on the odometer." The Chevy Apache pickup truck that he briefly replaces it with after becoming the new Crow is not much better, not that it matters, as things like a working tape deck or air conditioning "weren't important to an ambulating dead man, anyway."
• And I Must Scream: After Dan hangs her, Kyra wakes up in the Land of the Crow, hanging from a tree and surrounded by angry crows who are preparing to attack her, the implication being that she will savaged by them for all eternity as punishment for her crimes against them.
• Armor-Piercing Question: When a grief-filled Dan angrily yells that the crow should have resurrected Leticia instead of him, the crow snaps back, "Really, Dan Cody? Would you really want Leticia to feel what you're feeling now?"
• Asshole Victim: The gang who coerced Kyra and other desperate girls into doing Satanism-themed pornographic films under the pretense of performing Sex Magic. After stealing the group's grimoire, Kyra burned their house down, killing all twelve of the Satanists, as well as the latest girl who they were with (not that Kyra cared about that).
• Attempted Rape: Johnny tries (emphasis on that) to rape Kyra after they get married, invoking Marital Rape License.
• Badass Boast: During his fight with Dan, Johnny goes a bit nuts, shrieking, "My name's Johnny Church! I'm half crocodile and half shark, with a little Rottweiler tossed in! And I'm here to put you six feet south of my boots, cowboy! I was raised in Hell and suckled the tit of Satan's bride, and I eat hellfire and shit brimstone! I've kicked men to death with my cloven hooves, and I've got a barbed red tail and I don't give a shit where I drag it! I've swum seas of broken glass! I've climbed razor-blade mountains! I've walked thirty-seven miles of barbed wire, Dannyboy... I've worn a cobra snake for a necktie! Trick or treat! I'm gonna carve you like a Halloween pumpkin! I'm gonna carve you up, Dannyboy! I'm gonna eat your brains for breakfast!"
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Kyra rips out a cat's throat with her bare teeth as part of one of her spells, while Johnny, whose encounter with the crow has left him antsy about birds, later shoots the doves at The Little Chapel of the Stars.
• Bait the Dog: Kyra is initially shown treating Raymondo better than Johnny, but then she taunts Raymondo as she leaves him in a hot car with the windows all rolled up, and afterward encourages Johnny to abuse Raymondo by sticking him on their Mercury's antenna.
• The Bartender: Dan was working as one of these when he met Doctor Carlisle, who gave him a new job collecting specimens for her in the Arizona wilderness.
• Bathtub Scene: Kyra gets one of these, in a skull-shaped tub, shortly after she and Johnny arrive in Las Vegas.
• Battle in the Rain: Dan and Kyra's showdown takes place during a storm, which is fortuitous, as Dan is able to use the rainwater to weaken Kyra by washing off the eldritch symbols that she had painted on her body.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Kyra, Raymondo, and Johnny, respectively.
• Big Bad: Kyra, who is assisted in her endeavors by her boyfriend, Johnny, and their sidekick, Raymondo.
• Bloodbath Villain Origin: After stealing her grimoire from a group of faux Satanists, Kyra set the gang's house on fire, killing all twelve of the Satanists, as well as an innocent girl (not that she cared about that).
• Blood-Splattered Warrior: Immediately after his resurrection, Dan takes on a magically-enthralled army of crows, all of which he slaughters, leaving him drenched in their blood and gore.
• Body Horror: As Kyra steals more and more Crow power, Dan loses his strength, ability to understand the crow, and Healing Factor, but not his inability to feel pain or immortality. By the end of the book, he has accumulated so many injuries that he looks like little more than a shambling, humanoid wound.
• Body in a Breadbox: Raymondo has Johnny lock Dan and Leticia's bodies in an old Westinghouse refrigerator.
• Body Paint: Kyra uses the cremains of a dead Crow to paint her naked body with eldritch symbols, allowing her to steal even more Crow power. Dan hugs her to imprint some of the symbols on himself, giving him a second wind in his battle with Kyra.
• Book Ends: Kyra's journey began with her hanging herself, and ends with her being hanged by Dan.
• Butt-Monkey: Raymondo. He died a horrible death, and is now stuck as a Shrunken Head, subject to indignities like having his favorite CDs pawned, being left alone in a hot car with all of the windows rolled up, and being tied to that car's antenna as it speeds down the highway, splattering him with bugs.
• By the Hair: Dan rips out a handful of Kyra's hair during their fight atop the columbarium.
• Cannibal Clan: Raymondo ran afoul of one of these while leading missionaries through the Amazon in 1919. They killed him, and then gave what was left of him to their medicine man, who proceeded to turn Raymondo into a Shrunken Head.
• Cannibalism Superpower: Kyra magically replaces her own eyes with Leticia's by cutting out and eating them.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Johnny revels in being an outlaw, and at one point gives a speech about how he is The Unfettered.
• Celebrity Resemblance: Doctor Carlisle is said to resemble Barbara Stanwyck circa The Big Valley.
• Chained by Fashion: Kyra's necklace is a small chrome chain, which she uses to hide the scar left by her Interrupted Suicide.
• Chain Pain: Dan fends off Kyra's crows with a whirling chain.
• Chase Scene: Between the crow and Johnny's 1949 Mercury.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Lilith Spain comes off as dippy even when not high on drugs, which only exacerbate her loopyness.
• Continuity Nod: The crow presents Dan with an old Halloween makeup kit that contains black and white face paint, obviously wanting Dan to don the iconic Crow makeup pattern popularized by Eric Draven. Dan does not, even after the crow shows him images of previous Crows, possibly including Eric.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Both of Dan's parents died of alcoholism-related problems when he was young, leaving him to be shunted from one group and foster home to another until he finally just ran away when he turned 16.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: After Johnny pisses her off by trying to rape her, Kyra punishes him by forcing him to watch as she wails on Johnny's car with Johnny's own belt buckle.
• Cool Car: Johnny drives a Satanically-enhanced 1949 Mercury, which he stole from a businessman (after punching him in the face) in Dallas.
• Creepy Cemetery: The villains eat barbecue and have sex in one, and the finale takes place in another one near Hearse Manor.
• Creepy Souvenir: After killing Dan and Leticia, Johnny and Kyra take Dan's wedding ring and leather jacket, as well as one of Leticia's scorpion paperweights, as mementos.
• Cut Phone Lines: Before laying siege to Erik Hearse's mansion, Johnny sabotages its telephone and alarm systems.
• Dangerous Windows: Dan punches through a large window, showering Kyra with glass shards that are blown at her by stormy winds, right before the crow crashes through another window to attack her and help Dan.
• Dark Action Girl: Kyra, after she steals a bunch of Crow power.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Aside from Kyra, as detailed below under Freudian Excuse, there is also Lilith Spain.
  According to the tabloids, Lilith started modeling at twelve. By the age of fourteen, she was a regular at Rome's seedier nightspots. At sixteen she did her first nude scene, in one of her father's films. After that she began grinding out quickie horror films, usually playing a leather-clad vampire, usually ending up naked and dripping blood. By the time she hit twenty-two, she'd had two marriages, five abortions, and three trips to rehab for a nasty little heroin habit that had started in her modeling days. As far as Kyra was concerned, the girl had issues they didn't even have names for yet.
• Darkness Von Gothick Name: Erik Hearse, Johnny Church, Kyra Damon, and Lilith Spain.
• Dark World: The Land of the Crow, which is basically an eternally gloomy, heavily forested, and endless Creepy Cemetery.
• Deadpan Snarker: Raymondo. Being a Shrunken Head, he is unable to really do much other than sass, which he does a lot, usually at Johnny's expense.
• Death of a Child: One of the highway's landmarks is a memorial dedicated to an unnamed fifth-grade girl who was run over by a drunk, sleeping driver. Dan is a bit haunted by it, even though he had only ever stopped at it once, frequently wondering if the girl had time to react to the oncoming car, or if she died completely unaware.
• Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: Kyra soaks bullets in Raymondo's black magic-infused tears, to make them extra damaging against the crow and Dan.
• Defiant to the End: After being gutted by Dan, Johnny dies Flipping the Bird.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Feeling that a saleswoman was rude and condescending towards her, Kyra cuts the woman's tongue out, and would have killed her were it not for Pragmatic Villainy.
• Dissonant Serenity: As Johnny and Kyra are laying siege to her mansion, Lilith Spain shoots up on drugs, leaving her too blissed out to care when Johnny and Kyra (who Lilith deludedly believes to be her own ghost) barge into her room and begin demanding answers about the powers of the crows.
• Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: Johnny tries to attack Kyra with his belt, but she takes it from him, and uses the buckle to damage Johnny's car. Later, Johnny uses his belt to beat the crap out of Lilith Spain.
• Down in the Dumps: Johnny and Kyra hide Dan and Leticia's bodies in a garbage dump that they are led to by Raymondo. There is a lot of Scenery Gorn.
• The Drifter: Dan, before settling down in Tuscon after falling in love with Leticia, used to just aimlessly wander the American Southwest.
• Duct Tape for Everything: Dan bandages himself back together with duct tape after being mangled and shot by Johnny and Kyra.
• Due to the Dead: Before going after Johnny and Kyra, Dan makes sure to give Leticia a proper burial in the place where they first met, Cuervo Canyon.
• Dumb Muscle: Johnny is a bit thick, with Raymondo opining that his thoughts very rarely involve anything other than eating, fucking, and fawning over his 1949 Mercury.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Kyra's hair is black, and her complexion is "dead white."
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After Dan dies for good stopping Johnny and Kyra, his spirit wakes up in a phantom version of Cuervo Canyon, where it is implied that he is reunited with Leticia.
• The End... Or Is It?: The book ends with Lilith Spain stumbling onto Kyra's grimoire and Raymondo.
• Embarrassing Last Name: Erik Hearse's actual last name is Hershkowitz.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Kyra's visions lead her to Lilith Spain, more specifically Lilith's eyes. After interrogating Lilith fails and Raymondo discerns that there is nothing special about her, Kyra angrily throws her knife into a wall. As Raymondo stares at the blade, he notices his reflection in it, and realizes that Lilith's eyes are not what is important, it is what they have seen (namely, while Lilith was staring out her window and through her reflection at a massive columbarium) that is.
• Erotic Asphyxiation: The sex that Johnny and Kyra have in a mausoleum is... rough, with lots of biting, slapping, nail-scrapping, and windpipe squeezing.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Johnny gets mad when Raymondo insinuates that his mother was a whore, though this may have only been due to Parental Sexuality Squick.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Going by his reaction, Johnny is at least a little disgusted by Raymondo's "sick-ass" joke about digging up and consuming the ribs of graveyard corpses, insisting, "I don't dig long pig" and "I ain't no cannibal." Ironically, Johnny's girlfriend, Kyra, is a cannibal (not that Johnny is ever made aware of this).
  • Kyra apparently finds Jim Morrison obscene, throwing one of his CDs out the car window while sneering, "I'm not listening to any crotch grabbers."
• Evil Is Bigger: The crows that Kyra summons to attack Dan's crow are all way bigger than Dan's crow.
• Evil Is Petty: Johnny never just parks in one spot, he always takes up several, including as many as four at once when he parks outside of The Little Chapel of the Stars.
• Evil Sorceror: Kyra, thanks to her Tome of Eldritch Lore.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: While not evil, the columbarium is very ominous, being the final resting place of all of the previous Crows.
• Evil Wears Black: Johnny and Kyra only wear black, with the latter's wedding dress even being black.
• Eye Scream: Kyra gouges out Leticia's eyes, and magically replaces her own with them by eating them.
• Facial Horror: One of Erik Hearse's security guards gets his face completely blown off by a grenade that was lobbed at him by Johnny.
• Fan Boy: Johnny is a massive one for horror musician Erik Hearse, though this does not stop him from trashing and ransacking Hearse's home, or from planning to kidnap Hearse's wife for ransom.
• Fangs Are Evil: Raymondo's teeth are all filed to razor-sharp points.
• Fantastic Fragility: Resurrecting Dan leaves the crow weakened to the point that it becomes vulnerable to being killed through conventional means, in spite of its Healing Factor.
• Fat and Skinny: When Johnny and Kyra crash The Little Chapel of the Stars, they interrupt the nuptials of an immensely fat woman named Krystal and her scrawny, acne-ridden groom, Dwayne.
• Feathered Fiend: Kyra enthralls a massive amount of normal carrion crows to guard Dan and Leticia's bodies from the mystical crow that wants to revive Dan.
• Fin Gore: Dan gets two fingers sliced off during his fight with Johnny.
• Flipping the Bird: Since he can never seem to come out on top whenever he and Raymondo bicker, Johnny usually just resorts to giving Raymondo the finger, which Raymondo sardonically remarks is "Johnny Church's patented postmodern peace sign."
• Forced to Watch: Kyra makes Johnny watch as she damages his car with Johnny's own belt buckle, and after incapacitating Dan during their fight, strings him up with the intention of having him watch as she steals all of the powers of the crows.
• Freudian Excuse: Even though Kyra idolized her musician father, he hated her and saw her as nothing but a stifling burden, at one point even hitting Kyra so hard that she was Punched Across the Room. Kyra was afterward dumped on seemingly apathetic relatives, and grew up a bullied and occult-obsessed loner, one who engaged in mindless sex and drug use and anything else "that could make her feel." While living on the streets, she was taken in by a gang who used her for Satanism-themed pornographic videos under the pretense of the gangbangs being Sex Magic. When she realized that they were frauds, but that their grimoire was real, Kyra burned all of the Satanists (and one innocent girl, not that she cared about that) alive, and then, as instructed by the grimoire, committed ritual suicide in the belief that the crows would resurrect her as a Crow, giving her the power to right everything that was wrong with her miserable life. When the crows rejected her, Kyra swore revenge, and set out to steal the powers of the crows.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Kyra wears nothing but boots and a tattered raincoat during her fight with Dan.
• Genuine Human Hide: Kyra's grimoire is bound in human skin.
• The Ghost: Horror musician Erik Hearse is mentioned throughout the book, but never actually appears. The finale takes places in his mansion and the adjoining cemetery, but he is not present, having gone on a business trip to Los Angeles.
• Gilded Cage: Annoyed by Lilith Spain's unwillingness to have any part in his Hollywood plans, Erik Hearse begins keeping her hidden away in his luxurious mansion, where Lilith is attended to constantly by people who have been hired by Erik to keep her away from drugs.
• Glasgow Grin: Johnny gives Dan one of these during their fight, all the while screaming about how he is going to carve Dan up "like a Halloween pumpkin!"
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Dan has a badass scar through one of his eyebrows, acquired in a brawl, while Kyra has an ugly purple-hued mark on her neck, caused by the rope that she used to hang herself during her Interrupted Suicide.
• Good Shepherd: Father Cooke is an alcoholic with next to no passion for his job, but he is still a decent guy, holding Dan's hand and praying for him after Dan is seemingly killed (again) by Johnny and Kyra.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Kyra eating Leticia's eyes occurs "off-page." It is still obvious what happened, though.
• Goth: The villains are a goth occultist couple who wear all black, are heavily tattooed and pierced, and go by the names Johnny Church and Kyra Damon.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Whatever it is that "lives" in Kyra's grimoire. As the crow explains, its power is equal to that of the crows, and it is their antithesis, a being that is "evil, black and pure."
• Gutted Like a Fish: Dan kills Johnny by disemboweling him with a Bowie knife.
• Hand Cannon: Johnny's preferred weapon is a .357 Magnum.
• Heel Realization: Kyra, right before she is hanged by Dan.
  She looks into Dan Cody's eyes, and for the first time she sees the pain there, and she almost understands the agony he feels when he looks at her face and sees the eyes of his love locked in a skull where they don't belong.
  "You... took... everything!" he says.
  And Kyra knows that he is telling the truth. Suddenly, it all seems as simple as a fairy tale, and she's surprised to find that she's the villain. The witch who casts spells in a castle tower. Kyra knows her fairy tales. She knows what they do to witches. They hang them. That's what they do. And the rope is already around her neck.
• Hellbent For Leather: Johnny and Kyra both wear a lot of leather, all of it black, of course.
• Hero Stole My Bike: Dan loots the offices of the dump where his body was left, making off with clothes, a jacket, Cool Shades, twenty-three dollars, a blanket, a shovel, a pick, and an old Chevy Apache. Later, he breaks into a store and makes off with duct tape, a shirt, a cap, another pair of sunglasses, a map, and a Bowie knife.
• Hollywood Satanism: While homeless, Kyra fell in with a Satanic cult. They turned out to be nothing but smooth-talking posers who just used her for their pornographic videos, but the grimoire that they used as a prop in those videos turned out to be very real.
• Horrifying the Horror: Johnny is a vicious thug and a horror fanatic, but even he finds Kyra's grimoire creepy, to the point that he refuses to even touch it unless he absolutely has to.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Johnny (a big, muscular punk) and Kyra (a "junkie-thin" waif).
• Icy Gray Eyes: Johnny's eyes are gray, and noted to be as pale and cold as "the dead side of the moon."
• The "I Love You" Stigma: Dan has to practice saying "I love you" while on his way to proposing to Leticia.
• I'm Having Soul Pains: As soon as Johnny and Kyra are wed, Dan is overcome by excruciating pain that leaves him helpless as he is subjected to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown by Kyra.
• Immortality Seeker: Kyra's main reason for wanting to become a Crow is the immortality and the accompanying Healing Factor.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Brian Brunswick Cooke, the minister of The Little Chapel of the Stars, hates his job, and is The Alcoholic.
• Interrupted Suicide: Kyra committed ritual suicide in the belief that the crows would resurrect her as a Crow. After they rejected her, she would have died had she not been found and saved by Johnny.
• In the Back: Johnny shoots Dan in the back while Dan is crawling towards his Jeep, and later repeats the act outside of The Little Chapel of the Stars.
• It's All About Me: Kyra does not truly care about Johnny or Raymondo, and while Raymondo has an inkling of this, Johnny does not, and goes along with Kyra because he cares about her (albeit in a warped way) and because she has led him to believe that they will be together forever once they acquire and share the powers of the crows (in reality, while Kyra theorized that the powers could be split, she did not really believe that they could be).
• Jacob Marley Apparel: Leticia is still missing her eyes (not that this seems to handicap her in any way) when she appears to Kyra in the Land of the Crow.
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Kyra is still wearing her wedding dress when she lays siege to Erik Hearse's mansion, though she discards it before her fight with Dan.
• Knee Capping: After shooting Dan in the shoulder, Kyra follows it up by shooting him in the left knee.
• Language Barrier: The crow can only be understood by the dead, who hear it speaking plain English while everyone else just hears "caw, caw."
• Love Father, Love Son: Erik Hearse was utterly obsessed with actress Amanda Irons, and only married her daughter, Lilith, because she was "as close as he'd ever get to his very first wet dream." He sees Lilith as little more than another Amanda-related collectible, and basically wants to sculpt and refashion her into Amanda 2.0.
• Lean and Mean: Kyra, in contrast to her muscular boyfriend, is "junkie-thin."
• Lighter and Softer: While the book does get dark in places and has high stakes, it is nowhere near as grim as most other Crow stories, and frequently verges on being a Black Comedy.
• Magical Native American: Leticia's unusual blue eyes made her a Seer.
• Marital Rape License: After he and Kyra get married, Johnny tries to forcibly consummate their vows, feeling like he is now entitled to do whatever he wants to Kyra.
• Meet Cute: Dan and Leticia first bumped into each other (almost literally) while they both happened to be out scorpion wrangling in Cuervo Canyon.
• Mistaken for Racist: Leticia assumes that Johnny and Kyra are White supremacists, and while they do make numerous insensitive remarks about Leticia's Native heritage, they also make it clear that what they are doing has nothing to do with racism.
• Ms. Fanservice: Kyra spends a lot of the book naked, and has a graphic sex scene with Johnny.
• Multiple Gunshot Death: Dan dies from being shot in the shoulder, knee, and back.
• Mysterious Past: Johnny is the only main character whose past is not delved into at all, a possible commentary on how, at the end of the day, he was ultimately unimportant and just Kyra's lackey, as Dan's crow more or less states during a discussion with Dan.
• Name That Unfolds Like Lotus Blossom: Leticia Dreams the Truth Hardin.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Kyra, using her stolen Crow strength, subjects Dan to one of these, and later does the same to Johnny.
• Nothing but Skin and Bones: When Kyra comes face to face with Lilith Spain, she notes that Lilith is so emaciated that she could count "the woman's vertebrae as easily as pearls strung on a necklace."
• Obviously Evil: Leticia bluntly notes that Johnny looks "like a Halloween costume come to life—a black leather Frankenstein with brands and tattoos instead of stitches, piercings instead of metal bolts and clamps... a man cobbled together from personal nightmares."
• Occult Blue Eyes: Leticia's unusual blue eyes gave her visions, and Kyra stealing them allows her to summon a constellation that leads her to The Little Chapel of the Stars.
• Old, Dark House: Erik's Hearse's mansion is big, gothic, and situated on the California coastline next to a Creepy Cemetery.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: We never learn Kyra's real name, with the same possibly being true of Johnny.
• The Ophelia: Lilith Spain is pale, dark-haired, emaciated, and not particularly stable, even when not high on cocaine or heroin.
• Outlaw Couple: Johnny and Kyra, who Dan even compares to Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate.
• Painful Transformation: Kyra magically replacing her own eyes with Leticia's eyes is incredibly painful, bringing Kyra to her knees while she stifles a scream.
• Parental Substitute: While not overt, it is clear that Dan sees Doctor Carlisle as a maternal figure, while Carlisle herself sees Dan as something of a son, which is what led her to set him on the path to meeting Leticia.
• Pet the Dog:
  • It is noted numerous times that Johnny resuscitating Kyra after she hanged herself was a purely selfless act, and probably about the only genuinely altruistic thing that Johnny has ever done, even if it made him an Unwitting Instigator of Doom.
  • Johnny and Raymondo terrorize one of Lilith Spain's attendants, but after getting the information that they need from her, they walk away while telling her, "You've been a great help. You can go now." While the woman does get shot by Kyra while walking out the mansion's front door, it is unclear if Johnny and Raymondo knew that this would happen, or if they were even aware that it did, making it kind of an Ambiguous Situation.
• Piranha Problem: Raymondo was gnawed on by piranhas before being finished off by a Cannibal Clan.
• Pistol-Whipping: Johnny pistol-whips Leticia hard enough to instantly knock her out, later doing the same to Ella Valentine and Dwayne.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Johnny and Kyra crack jokes about smoke signals, Indian paintbrush, and teepees at Leticia's expense, and call her "Pocahontas."
• Pragmatic Villainy: Johnny and Kyra do their best to avoid killing people, though only out of fear of supernatural retribution, which is exactly what happens when they get sloppy and murder Dan and Leticia.
• Pummeling the Corpse: After struggling to haul Dan's body up a mountain of garbage, Johnny kicks it as Raymondo quips, "That's mature, Johnny."
• Quirky Town: Invoked by Johnny when Kyra warns him to be careful while out in public with Raymondo.
  Johnny: Baby, this is Vegas. Pirate ships sink every hour. Volcanoes blow up every fifteen minutes. White tigers fuck in front of an audience every five seconds. Elvis still walks these streets. No one's going to notice anything.
• Rage Against the Mentor: After having a particularly nightmarish vision, Dan holds his crow at gunpoint, angrily demanding that it answer his questions about Kyra. The two fight for a bit before the crow finally concedes and gives Dan an Info Dump in the Land of the Crow.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Kyra wears all black and has black hair, which is frequently described as having an odd crimson sheen.
• Riddle for the Ages: Who built the Crow columbarium? Who adds to it? Who maintains it?
• Robbing the Dead: Johnny and Kyra steal Dan's wedding ring and leather jacket, and also eat the food that was left in a grandmother's mausoleum.
• Scary Scorpions: The book opens in a town called Scorpion Flats, famed for the resin-encased scorpions that are made and sold by the Spirit Song Trading Post. Dan catches them for Leticia to sell, and throws a bag of them at Kyra, who is able to No-Sell their stings and venom due to her magic.
• Self-Censored Release: In-Universe, Lilith Spain's S&M-themed vampire films include both the regular versions, and the bootleg hardcore ones.

• Shrunken Head: Raymondo, of the Oracular Head variety.
• Single Tear: As Johnny is proposing to Kyra, Kyra briefly loses control of her stolen eyes, which shed a single tear for their actual owner, Leticia, and her fiancé, Dan. The crow later finds the tear stain in the dirt, with it being implied that it has permanently marked the earth.
• Sinister Minister: The missionaries that Raymondo was killed alongside made him an honorary holy man as they died, so he officiates Johnny and Kyra's Satanic wedding.
• Soul Eating: It is implied that Kyra stealing the powers of the crows will result in her somehow assimilating or devouring the souls of all of the previous Crows.
• The Soulless: The crow calls Johnny this, though more as an insult than a literal statement of fact.
• Spree Killer: Johnny and Kyra... sort of. They actually spend most of the book trying to avoid killing people due to Pragmatic Villainy, and so only have a small (by Crow story standards, at least) bodycount of seven, with five of those deaths all occurring during the siege of Hearse Manor.
• Supernatural Sensitivity: Raymondo can "sniff out" if there is anything special about a person, and this is how he discerns that Lilith Spain is little more than an Empty Shell.
• Talking Animal: The crow can talk, but it can only be understood by the dead, and Dan eventually loses his ability to communicate with it after his powers start being sapped by Kyra.
• Talking to the Dead: Lilith Spain is so out of it that she talks to Johnny's corpse, and gets miffed when it does not say anything back.
• "Take That!" Kiss: During their showdown, Kyra mockingly kisses Dan.
• Tattooed Crook: Johnny and Kyra both have tattoos, the former in particular having a lot.
• Terrible Trio: The villains consist of a beautiful witch, her thuggish lover, and their sassy Shrunken Head advisor.
• Title Drop: Close enough.
  The Crow: Like many others, Kyra Damon summoned me with a prayer... a wish for strength everlasting and vengeance and immortality. But her prayer was wicked, and she was undeserving, and I turned her away.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: Kyra's grimoire. Who wrote it and when is unknown, but it is bound in human flesh and written in blood, and is implied to house an Eldritch Abomination.
• Tongue Trauma: Kyra cuts out a rude saleswoman's tongue, and throws it in the garbage.
• Torso with a View: The super strong beating that Kyra gives Dan, coupled with Johnny shooting Dan at point blank range with a .357 Magnum, leaves a gaping hole in Dan's torso.
• Tragic Dropout: After her mother died, Leticia dropped out of grad school to help her father run the Spirit Song Trading Post.
• Transplant: Raymondo, who as appeared elsewhere in the author's work.
• Two First Names: The protagonist is named Dan Cody.
• The Unchosen One: Kyra committed ritual suicide in the belief that the crows would resurrect her as a Crow. When they rejected her, she swore revenge.
• The Unfettered: Johnny dramatically claims to be this during a discussion with Raymondo.
  Johnny: Truth? Dropped that word from my vocabulary a long time ago, little buddy. Along with a fistful of other words: conscience and morality, guilt and innocence, responsibility and obligation. While I was at it, I shit-canned all those little phrases most people live by: A penny saved is a penny earned... Brush after every meal... Truth, justice, and the American way. Said adios to ten fingers' worth of commandments, too. "Thou shalt not kill" was one of my favorites. I tell ya, Raymondo, the only church I attend is the Church of Johnny. To me, every day is about nothing more than me and mine.
• Watch the Paint Job: Johnny loves his car, so when he pisses Kyra off, she punishes him by going to town on it with Johnny's belt buckle as Johnny Screams Like a Little Girl.
• Weird West: The story is presented as being a kind of modern day dark fantasy Western.
• Wicked Cultured: Kyra only listens to classical music, and is a big fan of Peter Warlock.
• Worst Wedding Ever: Krystal and Dwayne have their wedding at The Little Chapel of the Stars crashed by Johnny and Kyra. Johnny fires warning shots, pistol-whips the chapel owner and Dwayne, kicks the photographer, shoots the doves, shoves Krystal aside, duct tapes the priest's mouth shut, and forces him to hold Kyra's grimoire and Raymondo while Raymondo officiates Johnny and Kyra's Satanic wedding.
• Villainous Cheekbones: While describing Kyra, Leticia notes that she has "model-high cheekbones" that are made all the more prominent by how unnaturally pale and tight her skin is.
• Villains Out Shopping: The villains banter and bicker while driving, eat barbecue and have sex in a cemetery, and go sightseeing and shopping (with money acquired through armed robbery) in Las Vegas.
• Viva Las Vegas!: Johnny and Kyra hold their Satanic wedding in a dingy Las Vegas wedding chapel called The Little Chapel of the Stars.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: While Kyra does enjoy Johnny and Raymondo's company, she does not actually care about them, only seeing them as tools who she will abandon once she steals the powers of the crows. When she assumes that Dan killed Johnny, Kyra shrugs and says, "The way I see it, you did me a favor. I was about to dissolve my partnership with Johnny, anyway."
• You Need a Breath Mint: When the terrified Father Cooke gasps in shock, Johnny takes a step back, surprised by how badly the preacher's breath stinks of Irish whiskey and peppermint, noting that it could "choke a leprechaun."

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