"So let's sum up today's attractions: corpse, more corpses and meeting with a family in mourning. [Beat] Well, well, you sure know how to have fun, Your Bitingness."
Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Dora Wilk Series (formal name: Witch's Hexalogy) is an Urban Fantasy book series by Polish author Aneta Jadowska, set in modern Poland, mostly in Toruń and Three-Citynote .
The story centers on Theodora "Dora" Wilk, living a double life as a police officer in Toruń and a succubus-like witch in its magical counterpart, Thorn. While using her powers to aid her during investigations, she tries to keep herself away from magical Fantasy Kitchen Sink world. The magical world, however, comes to her, as the Council governing Thorn asks her to investigate missing and dead magical creatures. Aided by devil Miron and his friend, angel Joshua, she sets off to find the so-called "Soul Thief", at the same time solving a murder case in the Muggle world. But with world like Thorn, that's just the tip of the iceberg...
The books in the series are:
- Złodziej Dusz (Soul Thief) - Dora, still a police officer at the time, must solve a political Hot Potato case - an elderly activist of a very religious Real Life organization dies, apparently murdered, and her so-called friends decide to milk it for all the political worth. At the same time, the Council, Thorn's ruling body, requests Dora to solve mystery of a Serial Killer who's killed or kidnapped about a dozen paranormal beings - the eponymous Soul Thief.
- Wilk W Owczej Skórze (Wolf in Sheep's Clothing) - a novella interquel, covering a simple missing person case that Dora takes as a newly-registered private eye and very quickly stops being so simple. It's only tangibly relevant to the rest of the series, being more of a play on characters and setting than anything else. Re-edited later to be part of Ropuszki anthology.
- Bogowie Muszą Być Szaleni (Gods Must Be Crazy) - Dora, Miron and Joshua move into their new house in Thorn to start a new career as private investigators when the repercussions of Soul Thief strike. Also, Norse god Loki begins to mess around and his Arch-Enemy Badb chooses Dora as her champion to stop him, Archangel Raphael really dislikes Joshua and sends an Axe-Crazy she-killer and ex-witch to get rid of him and the ghost of Dora's ancestress shows up and is not happy.
- Zwycięzca Bierze Wszystko (Winner Takes It All) - as the conflict between the Trio and Raphael reaches its peak, so do Hell's internal disagreements. The Grim Reaper shows up, as well as a missing character, an ex-lover and lots of kids. Fantastic Racism ensues.
- Wszystko Zostaje w Rodzinie (All Stays In The Family) - vampires start committing mass suicides in Gdańsk's coven and Dora's friends ask her to come and help. Right under the nose of the local vampire king, who's not very happy about it. On top of that, she-wolves of the local pack try to have her murdered, Baal starts acting funny and Miron proclaims that he "needs more space".
- Egzorcyzmy Dory Wilk (Exorcisms of Dora Wilk) - Dora's Muggle co-worker calls for her help when dead girls are being found, with odd cuts and glowing symbols of Dark Magic on their bodies. The case quickly turns out to be something much worse and Dora has to face psychopathic magically-empowered serial killers, a demon that decided to make her body his home and the byzantine politics of Hell, while at the same time trying to untangle the mess that is Baal's sudden declaration from the last book.
- Na Wojnie Nie Ma Niewinnych (No Innocents At War) - The local werewolf alpha suddenly starts to aggressively push for war between him and Dora and her pack. Something more seems to be going on as the werewolf goddess fails to answer the calls of her favorite granddaughter and Fantastic Racism boils just under the surface when everybody wants to start war at Dora's behalf.
- Ropuszki (Toadies) - A short story anthology, collecting both stories from author's website
and the previously-unpublished ones, presented from perspective of both Dora and other characters. - Dynia i Jemioła (Pumpkin And Mistletoe) - A second short story anthology, themed around Halloween and Christmas. Features stories both about Dora and the protagonists of Jadowska's other series set in this world.
With Dora's six books published, this particular cycle is finished, but the author is planning to create a verse of novel series, with some of Dora's sidekicks as main characters. The first of those would be Szamański Blues (Shaman Blues), focused on Witkacy, and The Girl from the Miracles District, about Dora's ex-girlfriend Nikita.
Compare and contrast Anita Blake in its early stage. Now with a Characters page!
This series provides examples of:
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# to H
- 0% Approval Rating:
- Nobody likes Gajusz, especially in his coven. His popularity boosts (a bit) only when Albin threatens to take over.
- Albin, presiding over the Conclave (vampire government), finds out that nobody likes him the hard way.
- Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Zig-zagged. After Miron leaves, Dora and Joshua are on the verge of getting together, but Dora's still missing her man.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Double-subverted in All Stays In The Family. Dora considers getting to Albin's house by the way of air vents, but she quickly finds out that nobody in her team would fit in them. Szelma, however, does, although only in her cat form.
- Accidental Pun: Meta example with pyr. In-universe, pyr is a powerful fire demon, but as Polish grammatic rules go, a she-pyr is "pyra"... which is also regional Polish name for a potato.
- Action Girl:
- Dora, of course, as a half-blood Northern Witch (battle magic skills) and an ex-policewoman with kickboxing training.
- Generally most of female cast qualifies as Action Girls, either by virtue of having magical powers or as police officers.
- Action Hero: Miron, since he's two-metres-tall devil with fire powers.
- Aerith and Bob: The series' naming conventions are mixed so thoroughly, it's hard to say what comes from where. There are Polish names (Dora, Anita, Gajusz), foreign (Varg, Joshua, Katia), biblical (Lucifer, Baal, Jezebel) and some that seem to be completely made up (Faoiliarna, Laoise), all existing alongside each other.
- Affectionate Nickname:
- Dora calls Miron "imp" and Joshua "little angel".
- Witkacy refers to Dora as "Ti".
- Alliterative Name: One of Aleksander's mooks is called Karol Karnowski, although Dora calls him Mr No Personal Hygiene (or NPH for short) in narrative.
- Always Someone Better: Dora has this problem with vampiresses.Every time I feel gorgeous, I meet a goddess
- And the Adventure Continues: At the end of Winner Takes It All, the Trio sets off to help with some unspecified vampire problem.
- Animorphism: A lot of the one of voluntary variety:
- All werewolves can turn into wolves. Their goddess, Faoilinara, can do so as well.
- There are people who can turn into lions or tigers, although they are rare in Poland and only one (a were-tiger) appears in the books as a Spear Carrier.
- Szelma can transform into a cat.
- Badb and Loki can take the shape of any animal they want to, although the former prefers a giant crow.
- Archangel Gabriel: One of secondary characters in the book and grandfather to Joshua. His main focus seems to be on angelic politics and personal gain. Kind of a Jerkass in the first book, but later turns into Defrosting Ice King.
- Archangel Michael: Leader of the Archangel Council (Heaven's ruling body), doesn't show up until the end of Gods Must Be Crazy. Him, Gabriel and Lucifer are connected by the same Triumvirate mental bond the Trio forms later. Dora describes his appearance as "too perfect to seem human".
- Archangel Raphael: Healer of the Archangel Council, opposer of any sort of peace between Hell and Heaven. Jerkass and xenophobe.
- Archangel Uriel: Also member of Archangel Council, as their telepath he's charged with interrogating suspects during Court sessions.
- Artistic License – Geography: The fact that Toruń happens to have a connection not just to the magical world, but also Hell and Heaven, is explained by stating that the city sits in the exact centre of Europe, which has magical ramifications. Not only is Europe's geographical centre heavily disputed, the measurement that puts it in Poland places it in a town of Suchowola, over three hundred kilometres from Toruń.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: To be on the Council, you've got to be the best - which in the magical world means power.
- Aura Vision: Magicals can see magic of others, with every person having a singular aura. Dora uses this to determine whether a person she interrogates is guilty.
- Ax-Crazy:
- Jezebel's mind wasn't exactly a picture of sanity to begin with, and as the story goes on, it seems to be getting worse.
- Aleksander is one hell of a murderous psycho who breaks people mostly for the fun of it - or at least, that's the image he cultivates.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: A quadruple version at the end of Exorcisms of Dora Wilk, when Dora, Miron, Joshua and As fight back to back against hordes of Ibrahim's supporters.
- Badass Longcoat: A long, black one is Miron's outfit of choice. For any occasion.
- Badass Normal: Dora's boss in the police. She's capable of keeping in check the ragtag bunch of cops dubbed "Animal Kingdom" by their coworkers and kicking their asses when necessary. Dora herself call Anita one of "top five women [she] would rather not piss off".
- Badass Unintentional: The Trio didn't really plan on getting so many levels in Badass.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Miron was one of currently-classic English poets, but he won't say which one, as he claims that if Dora finds out, he'll never live it down.
- Berserk Button:
- Don't try to harm any member of Dora's "extended family". Just don't.
- Try harming Dora and Miron and Baal will stop at nothing to get you.
- Dora states that every cop has a crime that's his/her Berserk Button. For her it's domestic abuse, for Anita it's rape and Witkacy is said to hate drunk drivers.
- Beta Couple: The romance of Leon and a young wiccan Sonia goes on for some books, culminating with Leon divorcing Braga for her.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Joshua, Shrinking Violet well able to kick much ass.
- Big Bad: Archangel Raphael in first three books.
- Big Good:
- Judeo-Christianic God Almighty and magical world's Goddess (aka Mother Nature). They both care about the world and every single inhabitant of it and are willing to help out as much as they can.
- Archangels Michael and Uriel - even if they can't stop some things because of ancient laws, they care about more than just themselves and promise to get to the truth and deliver justice if the Trio wouldn't be able to.
- Beast Man: Werewolves, although more psychically than physically.
- Blessed with Suck: Joshua. His empathy is really handy sometimes, but he can't turn it off and when you're living with Dora and Miron...
- Blue-Collar Warlock: Part of the setting.
- Boomerang Bigot:
- Katarzyna is a half-witch, half-fury known for mastery over two elements, who believes that half-bloods who don't hide their mixed heritage are disgusting.
- Raphael considers Interspecies Romance to be akin to bestiality, while he himself has a half-blood son. Justified, as the bigoted behaviour comes from a demon which possessed him after he had already had this child.
- Brainless Beauty: Dora's cover when she goes to an illegal werebeast fight is that of Roman's Dumb Blonde "sex toy", complete with a Navel-Deep Neckline and way too much make-up. She calls the whole thing humiliating, even though no one recognizes her.
- Break-In Threat: Rare instance when it's the good guys who do it. In All Stays In The Family, Dora and her werewolf commando break into Albin's house, find the nesting place (Doraverse vampires sleep during the day) and leave... super-cute illusions. The message behind this is clear: they could stake Albin and he couldn't do anything about it.
- Made even clearer later, when Szelma sneaks in on Dora's behalf and leaves invitation to Gajusz's place. They are in the same room and she leaves the message when he didn't look. As she puts it, that scares the vampire good, as it doesn't occur to him that Dora might employ a werecat.
- But I Would Really Enjoy It: In the beginning, Dora doesn't want to change anything between her and Miron (they're friends at the time), but catches herself on thoughts like this sometimes.
- But Not Too Bi: Dora's said to be bisexual and we meet her ex-girlfriend in Winner Takes It All, but in the books, she's interested only in males.
- Can't Have Sex, Ever: Being her Guardian Angel, Joshua can't sleep with Dora, even though they'd both like it. Subverted in Winner Takes It All, when Gabriel proposes to free him from his Guardian position. Joshua declines, as Dora's already with Miron by then.
- Care-Bear Stare: Dora accidentally does this to Azjel when protecting Nathaniel from him. She tries to stop him with Northern magic, but instead hits him with Love magic and brings back memories of his mother, reawakening his emotions and returning his humanity.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: Honestly, every man in those books is either hot, cute, handsome or distinguished. No wonder poor Bjorn is so concerned about his look.
- Category Traitor:
- Fantastic Racism in action. Dora's considered this by some, as she keeps company of a devil and an angel (there was a war between judeo-christianism and magicals in the past). Joshua gets it worse from his peers - he's the angel part of the trio and angels are the most racist non-people in the 'verse.
- Subverted with Miron. Dora assumes this happens to him too, but turns out hellians don't really mind that he keeps Dora and Joshua's company, even if they find it unusual.
- Celibate Hero: Joshua's apparently not interested in any woman apart from Dora, and even in her case he's not pursuing her, as he can see the UST between her and Miron.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Jędrzej, a werewolf Dora saves in Soul Thief, shows up in the final book as an informant, claiming he's indebted to Dora by her actions, and ends up becoming a new Thorn alpha.
- Clever Crows: Badb, a tricky goddess with great plans, takes a form of a giant crow.
- Comically Missing the Point: Happens to Joshua a few times.
- Cool Old Guy: Lucifer. He's pretty chill about his grandson sneaking out to visit Eden, or keeping company of an angel and a witch. He also always supports the Trio, tries flirting with Dora (as a joke, but still...), and is capable of slaying armies when necessary.
- Cool Sword: Archangels' swords, the only weapons capable of killing angels of higher order.
- Council of Angels: As God rarely intervenes, Heaven is ruled by seven archangels, or, if the matter is serious, them and their families. However, some are more equal than others and pretty clear that Michael, Gabriel and Raizel hold the most influence.
- Cowboy Cop: Dora has never been known for obeying rules. That's true for all the "Animal Kingdom" cops.
- Covers Always Lie:
- Averted in the second edition of the series - covers shows Dora in different badass positions, although the model seems to change with every book. However, the first edition of Soul Thief is guilty: the blurb suggested Soul Thief was yet another paranormal romance (with a healthy serving of lame puns).
- The last book depicts Dora wielding a katana, while her angelic sword is described as having European-style blade.
- Creative Sterility: After Henry got turned into a vampire, he gained the ability to play any song stuck his listeners' minds perfectly, but is no longer able to compose anything himself, to his grief.
- Cute and Psycho: Laoise seems to be a nice and sweet person - Joshua vouches for her, and that's something - but her time in Raphael's facility left her mentally unstable, and she can control fire, creating a rather volatile mix.
- Daddy's Girl: Szelma. Her father simply can't refuse her, as can't most of his werewolves.
- Dark Action Girl: Nikita. Anti-Hero or Anti-Villain, depending on who you ask. She apparently belongs to some secret international assassins society.
- Demonic Possession: In Exorcisms..., Dora is possessed by a "beast" demon, although neither is happy about it.
- Demon Lords and Archdevils: Hell's rulers, with no Evil Overlord figure to take the helm, are a mix of forgotten deities, fallen archangels and local demons (original denizens). Their standing in relation to each other is somewhat ambiguous - while Lucifer is often the one calling the shots and acting as a ruler, Samael seems independent and nobody crosses Baal.
- Dirty Mind-Reading: Accidental. After the Trio gets their mind link Dora and Miron have sex, but have to stop because Joshua, who's asleep at the time, is seeing the entire thing from Dora's perspective. Matter takes some time to clear, but finally Trio has a healthy laugh at it, with Miron proposing that Joshua (who Can't Have Sex, Ever) can spy next time... only maybe from Miron's perspective.
- Domestic Abuse: In All Stays In The Family Dora stumbles upon a werewolf family where husband abuses his wife and little daughter. Domestic abuse being her Berserk Button, Dora quickly beats the hell out of him, but later realizes with shock that wolf's wife loves him despite everything.
- Donut Mess with a Cop: Dora brings a box of donuts to her old police station so that her colleagues can say that they were having a break while she was (rather illegally) looking through the archives.
- Double Standard: In Exorcisms..., Dora has a short rant about the type of old ladies ("geriatric harpies") that applies this: if a woman in her thirties is living alone, then she's obviously a slut who sleeps for money; if it's a man in his thirties who lives alone, then he's obviously misunderstood and hurt and has to have a wife found for him.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: One of Dora's powers, which sometimes overlaps with Talking in Your Dreams (mostly in Gods Must Be Crazy) and Dream Spying (mostly in Winner Takes It All). Sometimes it gets downright annoying, but is generally helpful. Except when you're spying on the dreamsnatcher, because he can go full Freddy Krueger on you.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Played with. In book 2 the Trio is invited to a carnival party by the vampires of Triple Alliance. As vampire carnival party rule number 1 is "dress as a non-vampire", the Trio - none of whom is a vampire - decide to dress as vampires from famous movies.
- Extranormal Institute: Nisim's school, working as part-education facility, part-safe haven and part-psychiatric hospital for half-bloods. Among others, there are half-angels, half-magicals, half-werewolves and people with ancestors in all systems.
- Evil Is Petty: Raphael really knows how to hold a grudge, and Jezebel isn't much better either.
- Fair Folk: Elves, the only species Dora is careful with words around. That's because any bargain made with them, even without the intent, is magically sealed, and they love to make bargains with strings attached. They play with words often and compel people to come to them with Magic Music.
- Fan Disservice: Surprisingly for a series with tones and tones of fanservice, there is some.
- Jezebel is walking Fan Disservice every time (sexy, but murderous bitch).
- There's a scene in Winner Takes It All where Dora gets to watch Baal make out with a cute girl. It starts as pure Fanservice... up until the girl drugs Baal unconscious and kills him in rather gruesome manner.
- Fanservice: Loads. Every sex or kiss scene is quite detailed, most of the characters look young and sexy, and their descriptions are generally Costume Porn. The female characters wear leather, translucent clothes, skin-tight costumes or Navel-Deep Neckline.
- Fantastic Racism: An important plot point and one of the themes of the series. It's said that many of angels dislike magicals and vice-versa. Half-blood, such as angel-devil hybrids (like Leon) or angel-magical creature hybrids (like Nathaniel) are not seen favourably - attitudes vary from "it's a bit unnatural" to "this thing must die". Magicals and Judeo-Christianics have a long history of violence and, being long lived, some of them still remember Inquisition and witch burning. Members of Hell, Heaven and magical community have separate districts, restaurants and clubs - it's unlikely to see a magical in Hell's bar or an angel in magicals' club. Although leaders of all three groups try to calm things down, conflict remains festering under the surface. In those circumstances, friendship between Dora, Miron and Joshua is considered something unusual, to say the least.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Christianity is real, but so are parts of Islam and Judaism. There are Slavic, Egyptian and Greek deities living door to door, with Norse pantheon sometimes jumping into the fray. Werewolves are accompanied by dozens of other were-beasts, vampires, Eastern and Western European folk monsters, all types of magic users known to man, Fair Folk and elves. And one guy's a Native American Shaman, who sees ghosts and spirits.
- Fallen Angel: Rulers of Hell, like Samael or Lucifer, are those. Most of hellians, however, were living there long before the Fall.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: Miron is the most physically powerful, Joshua has the best magical perks and Dora is the tricky one.
- Fisher King: Ibrahim's surroundings became rotted, dying and full of poisonous animals after he's lived there for a few years. It's disputable whether it's directly because of his aura, or if it's the magic circle he set up, sucking all the life out of the area.
- Foregone Conclusion: Somewhere around the third book's premiere, Jadowska published a short story featuring a werewolf alpha called Jędrzej, with a note that it takes place after the series. Come book six, and a war breaks out between werewolf alpha Bruno and Dora. Bruno has a henchman named Jędrzej. Wanna guess who ends up as the new alpha?
- Gentle Giant: Leon, who's over two metres tall and a czart (one of Hell's residents), but at the same time is the kindest and gentlest of Dora's friends. On the other hand, he's a retired general of Lucifer's...
- Ghostapo: Apparently, Hitler wanted to create himself an elite fighting unit of werewolves and even had a collar invented - the so-called SS Wehrwolf curse - that would force them to fight for him. It would've worked if it wasn't for Stalin of all people hiring a witch to dismantle the whole thing.
- Give Me a Sword: Twice.
- In Sword Thief, Joshua borrows Michael's Archangelic Sword when he senses that Dora and Miron are in danger.
- In the climax of Winner Takes It All, the Angel Of Death lends his sword to Dora when she's about to face Trial by Combat (she doesn't have her own).
- Gladiator Games: In No Innocents At War, we find out that Bruno runs an underground fight club for werewolves, where they often fight to death against their captured and unwilling kin.
- God Mode: Some angels can Manifest, which turns their aura into Holy Hand Grenade, grants them Nigh-Invulnerability and makes them excellent fighters. As one might expect, this usually ends in a Curb-Stomp Battle, although, fortunately for angels' enemies, Manifesting happens ridiculously rarely.
- Good Is Not Nice: To some extent everyone, with sole exception of Joshua, but Baal really takes the cake. He's on Dora's side, but everybody doubts his good intentions and he doesn't shy away from torture, scare tactics or Mind Rape if he believes the other guy to be bad enough to warrant it.
- Good Is Not Soft: Lucifer. Miron. Baal. Leon. Generally most of hellians aren't bad guys, but aren't doormats, either.
- Gorgeous Period Dress: In their covens, vampires often dress in clothes from their youth filtered through their nostalgia.
- Gratuitous English: Both "daywalker" and "dreamsnatcher" are untranslated. Though justified somewhat, as Gratuitous English is fairly popular in Poland.
- Green-Eyed Monster:
- Inga is extremely jealous of Dora's "obvious infatuation" with Olaf - so much, Dora actually thinks that Inga was one of she-werewolves that attacked her. It passes after Inga finds out that the "obvious infatuation" was an act.
- Miron is generally a cool guy, but if anybody brings up the subject of Baal's proclamation of Dora being Prince's official partner, he enters Tranquil Fury.
- Guardian Angel: Joshua becomes one for Dora after he saves her live and gains Manifesting in the process. It's mostly a formal arrangement, as both save each other's lives just as often.
- Happy Ending: All Stays In The Family ends like that: She-wolves' gang is broken, Albin is defeated and out of country, and Miron comes back. Of course, there are two more books after that, so happiness is bound not to stay for long.
- Hell: Not a bad place, if you happen to be friends with the boss' grandson. Has a lovely old town, too, with gas lamps and old-timey cabs. However, it's much less fun in regions like Samael's domain or old Heaven vs Hell battlefields (blood never did soak into the ground). And generally being a client isn't much of a holiday.
- Heaven: Angels' domain, not necessarily a nice place. It's full of politics, though, and fantastic racists.
- Hemo Erotic: Seems to be a generic vampire fetish, since they enjoy sex and blood drinking in the same way. Partially werewolves' fetish as well, as their ability to turn into giant, fanged, tusked beasts opens possibilities for BDSM-ers.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Joshua with Miron. They've kept each other company since they were seven and Dora doesn't change anything between them.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: Dora says "oh my Goddess" instead of "oh my God" (witches believe in Goddess of Earth) and Olaf curses by "difficult change" (he's a werewolf. It sounds better in Polish).
- Hot as Hell: Miron, Baal (see Mr. Fanservice below) and Lucifer, even if the last one is just showing off for fun.
- Hypocrite:
- Dora in All Stays In The Family, when she finds out Baal's shipping her with Miron. She considers shipping a terrible practice and doesn't want him to do this... while, two chapters earlier, she started "playing little Cupid" to Olaf and Inga.
- Raphael qualifies as well, having a son with a magical while hating magicals and publicly stating that he considers mixed-system couples disgusting. Ultimately subverted, though, as it turns out that it's the thing that possessed him that feigns hatred of magicals. Child happened before his possession.
- Discussed in earlier book by Lucifer regarding Miron and Dora's developing relationship.Lucifer: We're [in Hell] because we rebelled against the rules of Heaven. What would it look like if we started to make unreasonable laws and expect hellians to obey them?
- Hot Witch: Definitely Dora. Being a half-fertility witch that has to feed on sex, this is something of a must.
- Humanshifting: One of Roman's powers, and he can use it both on himself and other people. It's explained as less of an actual biological change and more of an extremely detailed, touch-proof illusion.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Teresa is this to Gajusz. She's been Number Two to another vampire for years before Gajusz picked her up. She's capable of translating his "do this, now!" into coherent orders, she's able to organize everything in the nest while he's only playing inter-nest politics, she's able to smooth his fits of rage into relative calmness, she's able to aid him even when he clearly doesn't want help... It's heavily implied that Gajusz would fall long ago if not for Teresa.
I to O
- I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: The reason Dora gives for holding back with starting a serious relationship with Miron.
- I Know Your True Name: The main difference between demons and other hellians is that demons are bound to serve a person who uses their full name, which is why they use nicknames in day-to-day lives. Usually, only demon's sire knows their true name, but in some cases he can give it to another person, such as Baal telling As' full name to Dora.
- Immortal Procreation Clause: Inverted with angels - they're so insanely fertile that a single sexual encounter, even with contraceptives, is nigh-sure to end up with the woman getting pregnant. Dora, as a fertility witch, is able to tune it down, though.
- Indifferent Beauty: Dora doesn't care very much about her beauty, never really dressing to show it. Justified in that if she'd show what a Hot Witch she is, men would be probably too charmed by her magic to be of any use.
- Infinity +1 Sword: Archangelic swords. They're apparently the only things that can kill angels of higher order permanently.
- In Medias Res: All Stays In The Family starts with Dora digging three graves behind Gajusz's coven and we learn what's going on only when Gajusz himself shows up and asks this exact question.
- Insistent Terminology: Dora is a witch note . The difference is that a witch is born with magic, while a czarownica must learn witchcraft from the scratch and will never be as good at it as a witch.
- Instant Seduction: Dora can do this, being a fertility witch. One of the short stories shows that this is how she used to charge up her "batteries" when she still had to power herself with sex to live. Once she's free to abandon this habit, she stops.
- Insult to Rocks: Dora, upon meeting Badb again:Maybe she was raised by wolves, although suspecting this would be unfair to those animals.
- Interplay of Sex and Violence: Vampires, full stop.Roman: Miss Wilk, I advise you to be careful. For vampires, speaking of blood is like foreplay. Asking about what kind of blood they like is like asking whether they prefer vanilla or BDSM.
- Interspecies Romance: All over the place. Dora's a witch and Miron's a devil. In the background, czart (half-demon) Leon romances wiccan (in-story it's something of a nature witch). More cases like this are implied when The Trio discovers a prison-like facility where Raphael keeps half-angel-half-magical kids in Winner Takes It All.
- Intro-Only Point of View: The prologue of No Innocents At War is the only passage in the entire series not narrated by Dora - in fact, it's Varg's POV, describing the events leading to his capture by Bruno's wolves.
- In-Universe Nickname: Witkacy, for reasons unknown, calls Dora "Ti".
- I Shall Taunt You: Dora's tactic against Albion is breaking in and making some cute illusions: butterflies, roses...
- Jerkass: Nowakowski. His exploits on crime scenes must be seen to be believed - he drinks victims' alcohol and casually takes underwear from women's drawers - not to mention that he's absolutely sexist and has the tendency to ass-grab any woman in vicinity.
- Jerkass Gods: Most Pagan deities, but Badb and Loki take the cake. Both are willing to destroy people's lives and start wars and genocides for the sake of winning a bet.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Baal, although only Dora and Joshua can see this. Most of his jerkass persona is just an act, although see Good Is Not Nice above.
- Junkie Prophet: Witkacy has been experimenting with drugs since he was a teenager, causing a lot of problems for him. In Soul Thief (he's forty by then) he finds out he's a shaman, able to see and interact with spirits, although shamans in Doraverse have to drug themselves to do so.
- Katanas Are Just Better: A meta example - on the cover of No Innocents At War, Dora is wielding a katana, while in-story, her sword is decidedly European in style.
- Lady in Red: As befits a fertility witch, Dora puts a red dress on for a vampire party, although she feels rather uncomfortable in it. She has red hair as well.
- Law of Inverse Fertility:
- Implied to be true for angels: they are so absurdly fertile, they often have a child after the first sex, and nothing helps them.
- Defied by Dora, who can magically reduce her chances of having a child to zero.
- Long Haired Prettyboy: Joshua has long blond hair and many people (most often Dora) call him "cute". His gentle, kind personality reinforces this.
- Looks Like Orlok: Jean Mark attempts this, with... mixed effects.
- Mad Prophet: The priest Dora goes to meet, father Anzelm, is certainly some sanity short of normalcy, but he knows who will die and how, although that's of little help, given the "mad" part. He was made this way by Ibrahim to retrieve demon seals from the church they were buried in.
- Mage Species: While witchcraft can be learned by normal people (called czarownicenote ), it comes naturally for witches, who have magical blood and must "fuel up" by their element to be able to use their magic or actually live. There are two types of witches mentioned: fertility witches (fueled up by sex) and north witches (fueled up by sea and sea breeze), though more are implied.
- Magic Music: The boy half of the elven twins Dora meets uses music to make normal people stay away from them, but compel Dora to come.
- Magitek: Underplayed, but electrical stuff in alternative world runs on magic and magical abilities are genetic.
- Magnetic Hero: Dora seems to be able to make friends with almost everybody - the more feared in magical community, the more likely they'll be on first name basis by the end of the book. It's most notable with Baal - he's introduced as deadly fallen god, merciless and scary, but by the end of Winner Takes It All, he even proposes to sleep with Dora. Lampshaded in the same book when everyone thinks she sleeps with all those folks.
- Man of Wealth and Taste: Albin seems to play it straight in his initial appearances. When we have a chance to see his house, though... Well, he's definitely a man of wealth, but not so much of taste.
- Masquerade: Magicals and others hide from Muggles. It's partly explained by the possibility that, if Muggles ever found out, magicals would be shunned down or even hunted. They could, of course, hide in magical world, but that would mean that they couldn't safely enter muggle world.
- Meaningful Name:
- Wilk, Polish for Wolf. Dora's great...grandma was werewolf and Dora has some genes, as proven in Gods Must Be Crazy.
- Szelma is Polish word for someone akin to trickster.
- Mother Nature: The Goddess, who (despite there being many, many gods) is the supreme deity of magicals and is as such worshiped, especially by witches.
- Mr. Fanservice:
- Miron. Big, sexy, well-built, beautiful, Hot as Hell. Quite often shows up wearing no shirt and at home (which he shares with Dora and Joshua) he's often trouserless, too.
- Joshua also qualifies, as he looks like "that guy from the garage band that every fangirl wants".
- Baal, especially in Winner Takes It All. Dora's vision of the future events begins with Baal boning a cute girl. As Dora can't get her eyes off them, we get quite a detailed description.
- Ms. Fanservice: Dora. Before she moved in with Miron and Joshua, she used to go about her house in the nude, and author describes her in detail.
- Muggles Do It Better: Part of the reason supernaturals stay hidden in another world is that nowadays, with criminology and forensic medicine, discovering them would be a piece of cake for anyone with DNA-sequencing equipment. Also, Dora often prefers her Beretta to her spells (it's faster) and muggle cops have no problem with capturing supernatural criminals (although this is in part because said criminal is wise enough not to turn into a wolf in front of the muggles).
- Mushroom Samba: After Aleksander's mooks drug her before the rite, Dora has an absurdly trippy sequence which would be darkly comical if it wasn't for the context of situation.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Laurent. He's a dwarf, but instead of mining and smithing, he became a fashion designer - and one of the best, at that.
- Never Sleep Again:
- he Soul Thief attacks Dora when she sleeps.
- The death charms start working when the vampire is asleep, making them go out into deadly daylight.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Series is often criticized for it, and rightfully.
- Stuck in the basement with Ax-Crazy psycho and no way to call help? Make currently not-imprisoned angel form a mental bond with heroine and gain badass powers to come and save her.
- Pack of dangerous werewolves who has to be reasoned with? Surprise! Dora's great-grandma was friend with feared werewolf goddess and werewolves honor that.
- Being stuck in the burning building? Funny, Miron just got this fire powers...
- Preparing for a duel with centuries-old archangel? This mental bond from book 2 gave Dora angelic super-strenght.
- Dying? Give the same angel extremely rare healing powers!
- Nice Guy: Joshua is niceness personified and the kindest person in any given group, the kind that works for free in problem children schools, lets you cry in his chest and is always there for you, whatever happens. Of course, Beware the Nice Ones, for he's absolutely terrifying when Manifesting.
- Nonhuman Humanoid Hybrid: A lot of magicals are those and angel-nonangel hybrids aren't unheard of, either. Most notably Leon, Nathaniel and Dora, although in her case this trope is played with, as her parents are humans, but she only inherited the non-human, recessive genes.
- Noodle Incident:
- Miron's past is riddled with those. He once spent a few decades with vampires. Apparently, he also published his poetry and became an English classic under a fake surname.
- Many events Dora sometimes refers to might seem like examples of those if one doesn't read the short stories on author's website.
- Not Himself: Once played with, once played straight.
- Archangels were a bit surprised when Raphael started to hate half-bloods and magicals, but as it begun during Inquisition times, they never thought there was anything wrong since he's always been antisocial and had no love for non-angels. Turns out he was possessed all along.
- Played straight when Dora finds out that Raphael, hater of all non-angelic, has illegitimate and half-blood son. It's serious OOC for him.
- Odd Couple: Joshua and Miron before Dora moves in. One is an angel and the grandson of Archangel Gabriel, who's "destined" to become important political figure in Heaven one day, broke because his grandpa doesn't want to give him money (because Joshua doesn't want to be "destined") and is terrible with women. Another is a happy-go-lucky devil, grandson of Lucifer and something of a womanizer, who drowns his grandpa's checks in a ball aquarium to show Luc he's independent. They've met when Miron sneaked into Eden and Luc convinced Gabriel to let them be friends, as only Miron matches Joshua's noble status.
- Official Couple:
- Dora/Miron is obvious from the moment he enters the story.
- Leon/Sonia, with four books' worth of buildup.
- Olaf/Inga, with Dora being their Shipper on Deck.
- Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: Subverted. While underground fighting arena with trapped shifters sounds glamorous, Grizzly is perpetually skirting the edge of bankrupcy. Constant clandestine movement and dozens of guards needed to watch over his prisoners aren't paying for themselves.
- Once per Episode: At the beginning of every book Dora gains one magical runic tattoo to aid her during the story. The tattoo gets "taken back" by magic at the end of every book. Also, The Trio seems to gain more allies and powers in every consecutive book.
- Only Known by Their Nickname:
- Witkacy's name is mentioned perhaps once or twice, but apart from that, even his girlfriend calls him "Witkacy".
- As, like most demons, goes by a nickname, as knowing demon's true name gives one control over it.
- Our Angels Are Different: Long-lived beings with empathic powers, who Detect Evil and form mental bonds between close family members (although it seems it's more about emotional closeness than how much DNA they share). Also: much stronger and more resistant than normal humans, and much better-looking. If a person considers an angel their guardian and believes in this very strongly, the angel becomes said person's Guardian, able to sense the ward's psychical state and location no matter where they are (and which world). There are different kinds of angels (let's not go into that...) and only some of them have wings. More powerful ones are equipped with extra powers or skills, as well as ability to Manifest, which is when they are super-powerful, super-resistant, shine with holy light and banish all that is unholy with their mere existence. As it's God who grants them powers, even a plain vanilla angel can Manifest or have wings, like Joshua.
- Our Demons Are Different: There were residents of Hell even before Fall, who are now subjected to the rule of Fallen Angels, the devils. They consist of classical demons, which must obey their masters and are divided into four groups - Fury, Temptation, Chaos and Beast - and have powerful magics, then czorty, which are closer to humans and rather honor- than magicbound to their masters, and czarty, which are demon-nondemon hybrids.
- Our Monsters Are Different: Most of the paranormal creatures - magicals - comes from Slavic mythology, so we're treated to strigas, szyszymoras, rusalkas and other creatures that didn't look at all humanlike in the original legends. Here, however, they can all pass for humans easily, though some need to hide tiny details like pointy ears or extra gills. They can interbreed and chidren inherit some of the genes from both sides.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Immortal, although not invincible, and stay the age they were when transformed. They have mental powers and can use them against any other sentient being. A vampire can create new vampires, but he/she stays mentally bonded with his/her spawn and is obliged to treat them like children. They can also create human servants, renfields, who are granted very long lifespan, but must obey every wish of their master. Most powerful vampires (well-fed and possessing numerous spawn, that is) can walk out in daylight, which they do mostly to show off, but others are killed by the sun. They are organized into pseudo-feudal dependency system, with regional Master on the top and mere loyal subordinates or local landlords at the bottom. Transforming someone into vampire without one's landlord's knowledge is considered a serious gaffe, if not outright crime, and disobedience is punished with death. As Authority Equals Asskicking, vampire can get a higher position by means of a Klingon Promotion, although whether they do it by an official duel or coup depends on the situation. Oh, and most of them can control mortal minds to some extent.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: They can shapeshift whenever they want, although younger ones must do it by full moon, as well. Most are criminals, since their many animal and predator instincts just don't mesh with society, and favor BDSM. Men hold higher position than women. Werewolves are organised into packs, each holding a territory (a city or geographical region in wilder parts of the world). They are ruled by alpha male, aided by his second-in-command, beta. Notable pack members include omega, who acts as a negotiator, and lupa, the leading female of the pack. One's rank in the pack depends on one's strength (Jadowska seems to really love the Authority Equals Asskicking trope), yet any werewolf (even from outside the pack) can challenge alpha for his position. Such conflicts are solved in official duels and usually end with loser's death. New alpha usually replaces all the important positions in the pack.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: It's not normal for Joshua to forget that he's not allowed to sleep with Dora, even in the heat of the moment.
- Orange And Blue Morality: Gods don't really care about good or evil - not as much as about "mine" and "theirs". Vampires' morality is not exactly clear, too, and werewolves think in terms "good for the pack" or "good for me".
P to Z
- Pet the Dog: Gabriel gets his moment in Gods Must Be Crazy. Up until then he's shown as a self-centered old man who's all politics, willing to sacrifice his own grandson and closest relative for the sake of his own gain. Then, when Joshua is overcome with fever, Gabriel arrives at Trio's home, clearly worried and scared about angel's state. Up from then, we see more of him, and he isn't that bad after all.
- Paranoia Gambit: This is how Dora defeats Albin : she changes his kill charm formula by adding runes "mirror reflection" and "powering up" (thus making the charm return to him stronger every time he makes it) and then suggests that she added charm elixir to his drink. She didn't, but being a vampire, Albin thinks she did, so if he ever tries throwing this charm again, it will kill him instead.
- Physical God: Badb and Loki. Both are really, really big folks with strange body features.
- Playing with Fire: There are two species - magical furies and infernal pyrs - who can control fire, although it's tied to their emotions, so "control" might be overstating it a little.
- Laoise and Katarzyna are half-furies, and while the latter controls herself perfectly, the former can be psychotic.
- Due to events of Gods Must Be Crazy, Miron turns into a pyr, although his control is limited, at least for some time.
- Pornomancer: Dora, as part fertility witch, needs sex in order to survive ( until the end of Soul Thief). Her magic makes satisfying that need easy.
- Porn Stash: Varg has a truly enormous collection of digital porn, to Dora's amusement and bafflement. Dora mocks it whenever he annoys her, but can't understand why he even needs it in the first place, as he could have probably have any girl he'd start to.
- Power Gives You Wings: Both Joshua and Miron can manifest wings out of thin air after their Triumvirate bond is formed.
- Power Trio: The trio of Dora, Miron and Joshua. It's played initially for some extra laughs in Good Angel, Bad Angel setup, since Miron and Joshua are respectively a devil and an angel, but they quickly evolve to True Companions.
- Pretty Boy: Joshua, a boyish angel with long, blonde hair and slender body type.
- Protectorate: Dora considers her "extended family" (which grows steadily with every book) to be her protectorate. Gods help you if you try to hurt it.
- Psychic Powers: Popular among non-humans, especially witches and vampires. Most notably empathy, mind-reading, precognition and mind control.
- Psychometry: In the first book, when touching the hand of a prosecutor she's talking to, Dora sees some of his more emotionally-charged memories, which is what reveals to her that he's a criminal.
- Purple Prose: Jean Mark's speech, as he tries (hard) to emulate Count Dracula. Dora finds it hard not to laugh.
- Put on a Bus:
- Witkacy. He's a side character in Soul Thief, appears briefly in Gods Must Be Crazy, but hasn't been seen since then, despite being referred to.
- Dora's coworkers in the police. After Soul Thief they are theoretically still living and working, but they weren't even mentioned since then.
- For Witkacy and Bogna, The Bus Came Back in Exorcisms of Dora Wilk, where the former becomes an important B-character and the latter is Herald.
- Miron leaves in one-third of All Stays In The Family.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The group of cops nicknamed "Animal Kingdom" consists of a witch with psychopathic tendencies (Dora), a perpetually-depressed junkie (Witkacy), an alpha male (Hare, currently in psychiatric hospital), a boorish drunk (Nowakowski) and two newbies nobody else wanted. They stay in service because they're really good at the job, but stay on the same team because nobody else would take them.
- Really Gets Around: Mocked hilariously in Winner Takes It All. While the only people in the entire Hexalogy we see Dora making out with are Miron and one sea demigod, everybody in Thorn believes she has slept with nearly everybody important, including Lucifer, Baal, two Archangels, local vampire lord and the Angel Of Death. That's mostly because of her magneticness and how easily she makes friends, even with the most feared members of magical establishment. It goes even further in All Stays In The Family, when magicals believe that apart from the entire who's who of Thorn, she sleeps with all Tri-City leaders as well.
- Red Baron:
- Werewolves call Dora "Cahan Rhiorin", which means "Warrior Witch".
- Baal is known as the "Crimson Prince".
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Defied. While most demons have red eyes, or red rings around irises, it's simply natural color of their species.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Miron and Joshua respectively. The former is hard-headed and has mostly offensive magic, while the latter prefers negotiation to combat and has gifts mostly centered around healing.
- Red Is Heroic: Dora is a redhead and often wears red dresses or accessories.
- Redheads Are Ravishing: A lot is said by a whole crowd of people about how sexy Dora is, specifically because she's a redhead, and a pretty feisty one to boot. And since the series initially started as a copy-cat of Anita Blake, the ravishing part can get quite literal. Miron adds to all of this the fact that he Has a Type and Dora's red hair and freckles fit to it perfectly.
- Relationship Upgrade:
- In book 3, Dora and Miron go from Just Friends to Official Couple.
- In book 5, Leon and Braga go from having infatuation-slash-maybe affair to Leon getting a divorce and the two officially dating.
- Replacement Goldfish: Underplayed. In the beginning of Gods Must Be Crazy Dora notices that her one-night lover looks suspiciously similar to Miron, while his one-night lover looks like she could be her sister.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Aleksander, an Ax-Crazy and creepy demon, is an Asper, a creature with the ability to control reptiles. He also has, like all Aspers, long fangs with an absolutely painful poison.
- Running Gag: Dora hates entering basements. Every time she enters a basement, there's something bad in it. Never does she encounter a regular pantry or lumber storage.
- Satan: Split between two characters. Lucifer is a Man of Wealth and Taste and physical and magical powerhouse who rules Hell, but essentially Cool Old Guy for Dora and Miron, his grandson. Samael, on the other hand, is darker, more hostile and in charge of Hell's department of punishments.
- Scars Are Forever: Bjorn had his face scarred and disfigured in an attack that wiped out Olaf's previous pack. It's implied that the scars will never disappear, giving him a massive chip on the shoulder when it comes to his looks.
- Sequel Hook: At the end of both Gods Must Be Crazy, Winner Takes It All and Exorcisms of Dora Wilk.
- Sexy Villains, Chaste Heroes: Exaggerated, mostly for comedic purposes. Dora is no stranger to sex and kinky stuff, but once Jezebel shows up and starts messing around, she makes everyone look prudish and chaste by sheer comparision - including lesser sex demons. Jezabel is particularly miffed by the sheer concept of anyone being capable of resisting her charms.
- Shapeshifter Showdown: Badb and Loki fight this way in the end of Gods Must Be Crazy, shifting forms to be as effective as possible. One of them manages to gain an edge only when Faoilinara forces them into wolf form, in which Badb is much more proficient.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Joshua insists there's nothing between him and Laoise, and Miron keeps on mocking him about this. The angel certainly cares for her, though that might not mean much, seeing how he's the resident Nice Guy.
- Shipper on Deck:
- Baal for Dora and Miron, to her dismay.
- Dora herself for Olaf and Inga, as well as Leon and Sonia.
- Shout-Out:
- The books have loads of references to modern pop-culture depiction of werewolves and vampires, such as Twilight, Interview With a Vampire along with the movie adaptation and various metal bands (The Trio loves those).
- Hell is divided into nine circles (on the other hand, ever since Dante's Inferno, Hells just plain have circles), various biblical characters show up and Gabriel's Annunciation is referred to more than once.
- Titles of second and third book are shout outs, to The Gods Must Be Crazy and Abba's song. Exorcisms of Dora Wilk, title of book five, is, of course, Shout-Out to The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
- Dora's boss' name (Anita Czarny, in English Anita Black) might be a Shout-Out to Anita Blake, especially as her description is similar to Anita Blake's.
- Pathologist Bogna states once that the case she works on is straight from The X-Files and the only candidates for Mulder and Scully are Witkacy and Dora.
- Dora compares Baal's trip to Toruń to An American in Paris.
- She also once states that undertaking a particular action is like applying for Darwin Awards in terms of result.
- Slave to PR: Baal is respected as a Hell Prince mostly because he has a reputation of, quote, "a murderous son-of-a-bitch", meaning that if he openly admitted his Jerk with a Heart of Gold personality, he'd be knifed within days.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Most of Dora's perceived attractiveness comes from her fertility-witch magic. When Jezebel charms her, multiplying the effect, she's attacked twice on the way home by would-be rapists. And that's not to mention that when she converses with her male friends who are in relationships, their girlfriends start suspecting that she's flirting.
- Smells Sexy: Dora for werewolves and vampires. And considering their manners, she's quite unhappy about the fact and tries her hardest to hide it.
- Stupid Sexy Friend: At the start of the series, Dora and Miron are attracted to each other despite their preference to remain Just Friends. It's mostly because Dora's used to people lusting after her because of her powers rather than actual attraction and thus has problems with being intimate with people.
- Succubi and Incubi: Both magical and infernal variety. The hellians, incubi and succubi, are only alluded to. The magicals take form of fertility witches. While both -cubi and fertility witches need sex to live, the former put more aspect on sex and the latter on baby-making.
- Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome: After being Dora's staunch ally for the first five books, Katarzyna herself suddenly starts taking issue with her mixed blood in book six, to Dora's surprise. To be honest, it's not as much Dora's mixed blood as the fact that she doesn't try to hide it anymore, which the sudden heel considers disgusting.
- Talking in Your Dreams: Happens to Dora several times:
- All of her conversations with Badb happen this way.
- Mother Nature visits her in a dream at one point to give her a mission.
- Baal has a dream conversation with her on the topic of children and marriage.
- Dora herself interrogates a witness to coup d'etat in Hell in a dream vision of the future. It's unsure, however, how the czart she talked with can remember the conversation later.
- Miron and Joshua jump on the bandwagon later, having a short dream conversation with the God.
- The Bus Came Back:
- Miron returns at the very end of All Stays In The Family, having made up his mind.
- Witkacy appears in Exorcisms of Dora Wilk as Dora's partner in investigation.
- The Charmer: Miron, from time to time.
- The Empath: Seems to be a standard feature for angels. Trio gains it after they form a mental bond, although it only works between the three of them.
- The Nicknamer: Dora likes doling out nicknames for people, both friends and foes. Gabriel is Gabe, Miron is Imp, Karnowski is Mr No Personal Hygiene (NPH for short), Gajusz is Your Bitingness and Aleksander is Asper, to give just a few examples.
- The Stoner: Witkacy has gotten his nickname after an artist who did a lot of drugs, and for a reason. His shaman genes push him to try all psychoactive substances known to man.
- Time Abyss: Lucifer, Baal and Archangels are all over forty thousand years old, and God and Goddess are much older, as old as the world itself.
- Title Drop: No Innocents At War has Bjorn drop the title.Bjorn: There are no innocents at war, they're either with you or against you.
- Token Trio: Supernatural variety; Dora's a female witch, Miron's a devil and Joshua's an angel.
- Took a Level in Badass: Over the course of three books Dora transforms from a regular half-blood northern witch to quasi-vampire nobility, leader of a werewolf pack, uber-powerful multi-skilled witch with a mental bond to both an angel and a demon; Miron, a freelancer devil who happens to be the boss' grandson becomes a fire-breathing pyr sharing in the aforementioned mental bond; Joshua goes from Shrinking Violet wingless angel to a badass Guardian Angel with wings and Cool Sword (although the last one was borrowed from Archangel Michael and returned later). Frankly, the Trio gets new powers and perks Once per Episode.
- Touch Telepathy: One of Dora's and Uriel's powers.
- Translation Convention: There's apparently some translation going on, since it's hard to believe that people from France, England, Poland and Norway (and some supernatural places) all speak Polish between each other. However, language issue is never mentioned.
- Trespassing to Talk: Baal breaks into Dora's house to... make her scrambled eggs. Or have a chat. Really, he's kind of a lonely guy, but Prince of Hell can't really be seen visiting a witch's house.
- Trial by Combat: Dora fights one against Raphael at the end of Winner Takes It All.
- Try to Fit That on a Business Card: Dora Wilk, Deputy of Thorn Council, Honorary Alpha of Gdansk's Pack, Vampire Mistress (Under Special Circumstances), Liason between Triple Alliance Forces, Official Love Interest of Baal.
- Two Guys and a Girl: Miron, Joshua and Dora.
- Unexpected Virgin: Played straight with Miron, but not with Joshua, despite the fact that both are 350 years old. Justified in Joshua's case - if an angel sleeps with a woman who's fertile, the chances of her getting pregnant are roughly one hundred percent. Joshua would be bound to marry her, and he doesn't want to settle down just yet.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Dora and Miron have it in spades for the first three books. Finally they do, to Joshua's relief.
- Vampires Are Sex Gods: And even hearing the word "blood" out loud turns them on.
- Welcomed to the Masquerade: Dora introduces Witkacy to Thorn and Magic.
- Who Needs Enemies?: Teresa and Dora cooperate, and Teresa seems to be doing it only because it would benefit Gajusz... Until it would not. It turns out she's a raging vampire feminist who wants women to be more actively involved in vampire politics, so her plan is to entangle Dora deep enough in the case that she'll have no choice. So far, mixed results.
- Wicked Cultured: Inverted. Raphael acts petty, rude and unfair, to the shock of other angels. They expect someone in his position to hold himself in more dignified manner.
- Wild Card: The Thorn Council. In some books, they aid Dora, in others, they actively oppose her.
- Will They or Won't They?: First three books play this with Dora and Miron.
- Windmill Political: The Muggle case in Soul Thief. The murdered woman was member of Real Life right-wing organization and the fact that her case was not resolved after a day is used by her so-called friends to claim that "ruling party doesn't care for citizens who are not this party's electorate".
- Woman Scorned: Jezebel. After Joshua's father hadn't fallen for her, she used her magic to take revenge on his entire family. The fact that he wasn't interested in her fuels her entire plot arc.
- World of Badass: In a world where a random passerby may turn out to be an ancient pagan deity and the police forces are tasked with bringing beings like this to heel, it pretty much comes down to this.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Dora spends a large chunk of No Innocents At War dismantling Grizzly's fighting ring under assumption that he's holding Varg. Upon raiding his compound, she finds Varg absent from it, and the entire search has to start anew.
- Zerg Rush: Baal's army in Winner Takes It All. It basically eats the enemy. Leon states it's "rather impressive".
Toadies
- Action Fashionista: Katia. Either kicking some undead ass, or in despair over Dora's broken nails.
- All the Other Reindeer: Bogna was shunned by her fellow medicine students ever since she turned out to feel comfortable around the dead. It ended, obviously, when she moved on to studying pathology.
- All There in the Manual: This is the manual. Among others, it tells of how Leon came to consider Dora his adopted daughter, how Eryk and Szelma became an unlikely couple and how the conflict between Dora and Bruno started.
- Attempted Rape: Invoked by Dora to catch a serial rapist - she glamours herself to look like his usual type of a victim and goes to his "hunting grounds", then catches him when he tries to have his way with her.
- Aura Vision: Bogna can see aura building up around people when they're about to die.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: The perps in Toadies. They jokingly wished on their ex-lovers to turn into animals that would represent them best. To their horror, it turns out that the cauldron they used in their mock sabbath made it work, and just to make matters worse, transformation of muggles is a serious crime.
- Bewitched Amphibians: The eponymous short story concerns someone turning muggles into toads.
- Bigger on the Inside: Viola's wagon hides some sort of a pocket dimension. Witkacy wonders whether the door is a gate somewhere else or the witch has put up an illusion and the wagon is actually normal-sized.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Anubis mummifies his dates, as this will make them his forever, and doesn't see anything wrong with it.
- Cavalry of the Dead: How Witkacy defeats Viola: the ghosts of hunders of people she's killed are pumped up with power and sent to attack her. Their vengeance done, they cross over to the afterlife.
- Cleanup Crew: Played for Black Comedy in Clean Job After The Dirty Job, where werewolf alpha kills a wannabe-leader when the latter tries to assassinate him and he has to clean up the mess before his wife shows up. The cleanup crew turns out to be a Cool Old Lady called Grandma, and she leaves the place in better state than it was before the attack.
- Could Say It, But...: Miron could not tell Nisim that Katarzyna may have something to do with school's problems.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Witch Viola is torn apart by furious ghosts to the point that nothing but her skeleton remains. Even Dora, who's close to Seen It All, is freaked out by this.
- Deal with the Devil: It's rumoured in-universe that Viola made a deal with something to become Nigh Invulnerable.
- Does Not Like Magic: Witkacy is still freaked out by the magic portal between Toruń and Thorn, and is scared of combat magic, in contrast to muggle weaponry, which he finds just fine.
- Edgy Backwards Chair-Sitting: Azjel sits this way when him and Dora visit As.
- Evil Lawyer Joke: When Antoni glamours lawyers to make it easier for him to figure out his taxes and financial situation, Dora is full of understanding, mostly because she's battling taxes herself at the moment.Dora: In a room with a lawyer, a notary, a tax collector and a vampire, the vampire is hardly the most bloodthirsty one.
- Fate Worse than Death: The Tomb of Anna Batory, the archaic punishment for vampires. It's basically an iron maiden in a tomb form that the vampire is chained to the bottom of and then left in. Forever.
- First-Person Smartass: When first-person narration goes to Miron, he turns out to have endless deposits of snarkiness in his head....and so I exchanged a madwoman for a nut. I love them both, really, but there's a level of madness beyond which you should call it for what it is.
[elsewhere]
If we ever have children, Dora and Luc won't go anywhere without a babyphone. - Fish out of Temporal Water: Antoni, stuck in a prison tomb for eighty years, has huge troubles figuring out the world around him - his finances are a mess, he doesn't know the buildings and the city plan anymore, modern cars and technology are freaking him out and even the blood, with its higher vitamin count, vaccines and sugar, tastes differently.
- Five Rounds Rapid: Dora empties the entire magazine of her pistol into Viola, who turns out to be Immune to Bullets. Justified, as she doesn't have anything else with her.
- Granola Girl: Bogna's bleak musings about magic challenging all she's ever believed in are interwoven with thoughts on how she shouldn't eat so much salt, chips are unhealthy for her son and she should take long walks to stay fit.
- Gratuitous English: The book is marked as part of "Thorn Universe", those two words being in English, and that's not for lack of Polish term (uniwersum).
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Szelma was actually sent to a therapist to deal with it - she's been challenging much bigger wolves over small matters.
- Happily Adopted: Szelma is a were-cat adopted into a werewolf clan, but she considers them her family, her father cares for her and her "brothers" are ready to defend her if someone as much as glances at her in an unfavourable way.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation:
- In his POV, Witkacy mentions that he had turned in both his car keys and service weapon, because he doesn't trust himself not to kill someone when he's high on drugs. That's despite the fact that he's one of the most effective policemen in his precinct and Dora trusts him to watch her back implicitly.
- Bjorn has troubles believing that Alina would be interested in him as a person, and not just an injured animal.
- Hidden Depths: Bjorn looks like a huge, burly Viking, but is a fan of classical music and an excellent cook.
- Higher Understanding Through Drugs: Shamanism seems to be based around this. Using copious amounts of drugs, shamans can speak with ghosts more freely and find a way to call upon their powers.
- Immune to Bullets: Viola laughs at Dora's attempts to shoot her, and for a second, Witkacy even thinks that Wilk had loaded blanks.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: At one point Miron notes that he considers "possibility of sparking a conflict between magicals and hellians" to be simply an excuse to keep him and Joshua away from Dora's problem. Replace "problem" with "storyline" and it becomes very meta.
- Little Miss Badass: Szelma proves herself by first threatening Eryk with a knife and then beating a sea serpent almost singlehandedly. She's not twenty yet, and rather short.
- Living Lie Detector: Witkacy's skills let him discern to some extent whether someone is lying or telling the truth.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Bjorn deals with the two poachers threatening Alina by running between them, making one shoot the other, and then making the other chase the wolf until his leg catches in a rusty bear trap. That's because Alina explicitly told him that if bite marks were found on any of them, her dogs would be put down.
- Magic Feather: Witkacy's teacher has been telling him that all the gadgets and rites used in ceremonies are simply this, to help him use his own power.
- Naïve Newcomer: Dora in the first story. Leon nearly has a stroke when he realizes she has no idea she shouldn't enter hell pubs, doesn't know the difference between czart and czortnote and acts completely relaxed around him.
- Nepotism: The perp in After Rain, Every Wolf Smells Of A Wet Dog is protected from magic community by the fact that his uncle is the packmaster of Thorn.
- Noodle Incident: Ever since Viola's last visit to Thorn, the vampires check their blood bags twice before drinking anything. No more is said on the matter.
- Not Me This Time: The shady fertility witch Dora suspects of turning people into toads nearly says this word for word, and proves to be truthful, even pointing them to the right suspect.
- Oh, Crap!: Roman, when he realizes that he's looking at the Tomb of Anna Batory.
- One Head Taller: Eryk notes this with him and Szelma, laughing that she's one of the few people who make him feel tall.
- Pass the Popcorn: Discussed for drama by Witkacy.Witkacy: I could either try to act or summon myself a pack of popcorn and watch that beast kill my friend.
- Pointy Ears: According to in-book artwork, Szelma, a were-cat, has them.
- Porn Stash: The two victims in Toadies have porn DVDs and magazines in plain sight. When Dora points out that it's quite an anachronism in this era, Witkacy justifies it by noting that their Internet supplier may've blocked porn sites.
- Rape as Drama: One of the stories concers a hunt for a werewolf that rapes and kills young women.
- Real Men Cook: When Bjorn stays at Alina's house to make sure she's safe, he makes all the dinners.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Bruno tries to invoke this on Dora to have his nephew released from prison and charges. She has none of it, though.
- Sea Monster: The sea serpent that attacks Eryk is a big, poisonous thing that likes anything roughly humanoid for a snack.
- Secret-Keeper: In After Rain..., Dora is still this for magicals of Thorn - Thornites are officially instructed to contact her if they're in Masquerade-threatening trouble with the police.
- Shout-Out:
- At one point Witkacy asks whether they've beaten the right Wicked Witch of the West.
- Alina nicknames the injured doe that Bjorn brings to her Bambi.
- Smells Sexy: Szelma is very attractive to shapeshifters and vampires because of her smell, a fact she finds rather problematic. She claims its cat pheromones.
- Take That!: The introduction has one to The Doll, known in Poland as either their best novel or their students' bane, depending on who you ask.Jadowska: In a novel, it's not good to derail your story - unless you plan to stroll on Paris' streets in a black turtleneck and monologue about streams of consciousness and moments in life. I like black, Paris' streets sound nice as well, but the rest makes my eyelids get heavier and heavier.
- The Dreaded: Viola is this for Thorn community, to the point that the usually-decisive and impossibly powerful Council prefers to wait until she leaves and then clean up rather than deal with her.
- There Are No Therapists: Defied - both Szelma and Eryk mention going to therapists to deal with their definitely-supernatural problems.
- Third-Person Person: Viola speaks like this when high on her powers. Witkacy lampshades it, noting that the crazy ones must always talk in third person.
- Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Azjel. Between Winner Takes It All and Eternal Pen, he changes into almost a completely different person as a result of former's events.
- True Love's Kiss: Dora and Witkac discuss it when wondering how to turn the toads back into people. Neither is particularly inclined to check if a kiss would work, but Dora mentions that she knows a girl with reptile fetish ("close enough") who may aid them if this really proves to be the only solution.
- Unstoppable Rage: When Braga's worse side gets better of her, she demolishes her husband's bar within minutes.
- Vein-o-Vision: Bogna can see what inside people has caused their deaths, and her description makes it sound this way.
- Whispering Ghosts: The dead whisper to Bogna about how they died, helping her immensely, although it's cryptic sometimes.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Before meeting Szelma, Eryk is contemplating suicide by sunlight, as his century-and-more of life has left him without a purpose.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: Underplayed, but Katia spends severl days in Anubis' place under impression that she's been there only for a few hours.
- You Are Not Alone: Dora tell Bogna this when the latter's freaking out about magic, promising to introduce her to more "part-time" magicals.
- Your Vampires Suck: To The Twilight Saga:Dora: Hey, you're not planning to shine like Svarovski's crystals?
He turned to face me, very slowly.
Roman: One more comparison to Twilight and there'll be nothing left when I finish with you. - Zerg Rush: Viola is defeated by ghosts by their sheer numbers.
