The voice (for once not in his head) is defined by defiance. It makes Knox want to kill. However, Huric is not made for murder. He is the martyr, the bold brother who lived as he long as he could before fate took him too soon. Now that he commands breath and life again, how could he let it be ended on his watch?

Other voices teach Knox to control that desire. Hasn't it been so long since he's tasted blood? He has a son now, doesn't he understand that he cannot descend into fits of insanity? Stuck in the dark, the hunter paws at the earth with nervous energy and seeks the creature who dares remain. Don't they know how much he has lost?

How could they? is Manhattan's voice, is sorrow.

"Don't you know how much I've lost?" he calls, as if hoping he can still make her go. Is it Huric or Knox who tries to delay a fight? Huric's a warrior, Knox a thief, but it is Knox who wishes to strike. It is Huric desiring peace.

"You should have left," he calls again into nothing, into a quiet interrupted by the patter of the sleet on the roof of leaves. "I won't back down, I can't," Knox says, hearing the words echo inside. Isn't it true that he is beyond his own control now, so desperate to find success in means other than those already explored that he will try anything?

Knox is no warrior, he borrows the face of one now only to bolster himself in a time of need. He needs battle, he needs something to forget the pain of everything, to forget the total hurt that consumes his heart. Is there anything that remains? His one best friend dead, his lover gone, his son mute with grief, everything has collapsed around him. Even the dark betrays; how can he strike a distant enemy who is nothing but the occasional glimmer of low moonlight? Even this, Knox is not sure he believes. The light reflects like the shine of a dead snake killed moons ago by his companion. Surely no equine could give off such a glimmer.

This enemy must be a monster. Its voice is feminine but its vessel impossible to make out. Even the position is vague, hinted at only by sound partially covered by sleet. The smell of the corpse blocks out the monster's scent entirely; Knox can sense nothing of her that he cannot hear. Snorting, the hunter turns to the only thing he can rely on when all else has left him and failed: magic.

His blinding magic springs forth first as its typical trail of silver smoke. Let the moon's magic seek out the enemy, let him follow the pull and traces of it towards whatever body lies waiting. Second, he cloaks himself in shadow. He pulls it over himself like a blanket, taking comfort in its warmth and the idea that at least for a few moments, he cannot be seen. If he cannot be seen does he not exist? Perhaps he is alone, perhaps he is in a void of un-being. This is as he always has been, never here, simply floating...

No. You lived. You live. I've died.

Her voice, cutting through the dark, hurts. Knox shakes his head, trying to shed Manhattan's ghost and do as planned. Blind the beast, follow the trail of his own magic to find her, and do as he can under the cloak that hides. He must stay in control...

Pay attention, colt! shouts an imp, returning Knox to the pecking order of his youth. Yes, pay attention. He watches his blinding magic, hoping it leads him to the enemy, and follows it at as quick of a lope as his heavy body can muster on such short notice. Knowing little of his enemy Knox can make no attempts at aiming. He merely charges, hoping he is headed in the right direction at all and bracing his body for impact. Knox does all that he can. He's alone now, though, for one of the first times in his life and with a permanence that never before hurt him so. There is little he can do, like that.


""