Sunday 14 August 2016

Demon Blood

Do demons have blood? Some of us believe that they do not exist but that is not the point. If they existed, would they have blood? No, they are (believed to be) pure spirits. But diverse versions of demons are imagined in myth and fiction. Incubi and succubi either have or assume physical bodies. Steve Matuchek, werewolf, bites an incubus:

"I howled, once, and sank my teeth in him.
"His blood did not taste human. It was like liquor, it burned and sang within me. I dared not bite him again. Another such draught and I might lie doglike at his feet, begging him to stroke me. I willed myself human."
-Poul Anderson, Operation Chaos (New York, 1995), p. 109.

This passage struck a chord because, in the DC Universe, John Constantine, received a blood transfusion from a demon. Some of Constantine's script writers, including his creator, Alan Moore, report seeing Constantine in what we call the real world...

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I'm reminded of how, when the Matucheks raided Hell to rescue their daughter, Steven bit a certain infamous man from our universe. He thought that man's blood tasted human, sort of!

Sean