Demona - Character Biography

Character Biography

Demona was a member of the Gargoyle clan at the medieval Scottish Castle Wyvern, Goliath's mate and second-in-command. Like the rest of the clan, Demona originally had no formal name, though Goliath frequently referred to her as his "Angel of the Night". The two mated and eventually had a daughter, Angela, who would join the Manhattan Clan 1000 years into the future. Resentful of human prejudice toward her clan, Demona conspired with the Captain of the Guard to betray the humans inhabiting Castle Wyvern to the Viking raiders. However, Demona failed to convince Goliath to get the gargoyles away from the castle - her end of the bargain - and the clan was slaughtered during daylight. When Goliath returned with Hudson, he was devastated to see the murder of his clan, which he believed included his mate. Demona abandoned the castle with the intent of coming back once he had calmed down, returning only to find the six survivors, including Goliath, under the Magus' stone sleep curse. This broke her heart, beginning the downward spiral in Demona's life of loneliness and pain.

Alone for several years, Demona had an encounter with a child named Gillecomgain (based loosely on Gille Coemgáin of Moray), scarring his face when he catches her stealing food. Gillecomgain becomes the original Hunter, a mercenary and assassin seeking revenge against her, who is "continued" over a line of generations to come. She is later joined by surviving Gargoyles from other clans in 997. During the year she encounters a time lost Brooklyn, who convinces her and the clan to help Kenneth III to fight against Constantine. Though she agrees, she plans to retrieve the Grimorum after it is taken by Constantine's sorceror Brother Valmont. After Kenneth's side has won the battle, the Phoenix (from The Phoenix Gate) is about to take the "timedancing" Brooklyn to another time period. Knowing he can't leave the Grimorum with Demona (since she wants to take over Scotland with it), Brooklyn offers to hold it while she takes out her half of The Phoenix Gate and while Brooklyn is whisked away. Later on, Demona allies herself with a young Macbeth to kill their common enemy of Gillecomgain. Later, an elderly Demona enters into a bargain with Macbeth; Macbeth entered it to protect his kingdom from his cousin Duncan I of Scotland, while Demona wanted her youth back so she could lead the last of her kind. The pact is facilitated by the Weird Sisters, with several side effects: pain felt by one is shared with the other when in close proximity, and both are immortal unless one is simultaneously killed by the other (as long as one of them is still alive, the other cannot be killed through any other means). Little did they realize that they were becoming pawns as part of a greater plot by the Weird Sisters and the evil Archmage from Castle Wyvern to take over the mystical island of Avalon in the 20th century. Macbeth himself soon comes to admire Demona's combat prowess, and eventually becomes heavily dependent on Demona's clan for support in the war with Duncan's forces. In the final battle with Duncan, Demona's devastating attacks so impress Macbeth, he exclaimed "You fight like a demon!" After becoming king, Macbeth calls her "Demona" (lit. "She-Demon"), for the first time, a name she finds very pleasing, and simultaneously declares her as his primary adviser. The two become fast friends, and it appears that Demona's life may turn around for the better. Eventually, Demona's trust in Macbeth evaporates after overhearing Macbeth's courtier advising him on severing their ties with the Gargoyles in order to win the support of the English. Fearing that this would come to pass (though Macbeth strongly denies it), she abandons his forces to Duncan's son Canmore and the English armies. Canmore, in turn, betrays her, killing the last of her clan. Demona would not enter into another alliance with a human for almost a thousand years. During the intervening time, she amasses a substantial fortune, while plotting her revenge on humanity; all the while being hunted by Canmore's descendants, who take up the mask of the Hunter. One hunter attacked her in Florence in 1495. According to Greg Weisman: "In 1920, Demona would encounter a hunter, Fiona Canmore in Paris, France. This event would have been seen in the unfinished Team Atlantis series." She encounters and kills another hunter named Charles Canmore in Paris in 1980.

Some time before 1994, Demona allied herself with David Xanatos, gets him the Grimorum Arcanorum, and tells him about the spell put upon the Gargoyles at Castle Wyvern. This leads Xanatos to bringing the castle to Manhattan and waking up Goliath and the rest of the clan. Despite her and Xanatos's efforts to manipulate them, the clan refused to join her vendetta and actively opposes her. She later assisted Xanatos in resurrecting one of the dead Gargoyles from Wyvern, Coldstone, attempted to murder Elisa Maza, and also tried to exterminate humanity on numerous occasions; first by having Puck destroy them (which failed: he impishly "destroyed" the humans by turning them into gargoyles), and then used magic to turn them into stone during the night, allowing her to go on a vicious murder spree. When magic and sorcery failed, she turned to science by hiring geneticist and villain Anton Sevarius, to help create a virus that would destroy all human life on Earth. (Though knowing Demona to be genocidal, it is unclear whether or not Sevarius actually gave her what she asked for, though she assumed he had.) When she was invited to Xanatos and Fox's wedding as the bridesmaid, with Goliath as the best man. However, it was a plot to restore the Phoenix Gate. The four traveled back to 975 AD, where Xanatos will fulfill his own destiny while she showed her past self her clan frozen during the night. These events lead up to her hatred of humanity.

Demona is also granted a "gift" by the magical being Puck: after she requests that he make her able to walk in daylight without turning to stone, he devises and casts a spell that transforms Demona into a human at sunrise, and remains so during the day ("The Mirror") until sunset, when she transforms back into her "gargate" form. The transformation is incredibly painful and it hurts Macbeth when he is in proximity as part of their binding spell. Though initially furious at Puck's trick -she had wanted to be a gargoyle during the day, not a human- she realized the positive uses of her human form as she later took up the alias of Dominique Destine. Using the immense fortune and resources that she acquired over the years, she formed a company called Nightstone Unlimited and became its CEO. She uses the company to further her goals when she cannot as a Gargoyle. She allied herself with Goliath's evil clone Thailog to first, steal Macbeth's fortune, and when failing that, creating their own version of the Manhattan Clan through cloning. Though, the ever treacherous Thailog had other plans and betrayed her, leaving her for dead after a fight with the Manhattan Clan. She was later revealed to be alive. At the end of the show's run, she was still trying to successfully execute her ultimate plan of the destruction of the human race while trying to reach out to her daughter Angela, and win her over to her cause. She is incredibly overprotective of Angela and will step in and defend her if she is attacked. Demona was last seen on Halloween in Saint Damien's Cathedral recovering the crystal ruins of the Praying Gargoyle.