John returned, bringing Hume with him.
Martha nervously kept her head down, trying to avoid the attention of a passing police car. Little did she know this behavior made her look even more suspicious. Fortunately, the officers were already accustomed to the odd characters who frequented this area.
After the police car passed, Martha breathed a sigh of relief.
"Bang!"
The car hood shook violently as Hume, the school's popular figure, was slammed onto it. He groaned, looking at John's approach with terror written across his face.
"Don't! Ah!"
John grabbed his hair and dragged him off the hood. Hume's back kissed the pavement hard, his legs flailing as he screamed.
John walked to the trunk and knocked, signaling Martha to open it. She was already stunned. When John had said he'd find Hume, she'd imagined something far more civilized.
Frantically opening the trunk, Martha wanted to help while panicking about being discovered. The people at the party seemed oblivious to their protagonist's departure, the booming music reaching disturbing levels.
After opening the trunk, John threw Hume inside. When Hume tried to resist, John drew his wand. Don't misunderstand—he wasn't planning to use magic. The wand pierced through Hume's palm, turning his aggressive posture into even more intense screaming.
His wailing rivaled the party music in volume.
"Martha, do you have a pen?"
"A pen? I have one here." Martha was like a lost lamb in a wolf pack, trembling as she searched the passenger seat. She retrieved a spare pen and handed it to John.
Seeing Hume's miserable state in the trunk, sympathy flashed in her eyes. As a medical student, she couldn't bear to hear screaming.
So John very considerately, right in front of her, inserted the pen at a precise angle through Hume's eye socket. Hume immediately stopped screaming and achieved peaceful unconsciousness.
But now Martha was the one screaming.
John pulled out his wand, closed the trunk, glanced at the still-screaming Martha, and used a handkerchief to clean the blood from his wand.
"Drive. Find somewhere isolated."
Sitting in the back seat, John urged the panicking Martha.
She finally stopped screaming, looking terrified as she tried several times to start the car. Finally getting it running, the vehicle lurched crookedly down the road.
"Is he... is he... is he dead?" she stammered.
Martha was so nervous she kept swallowing, sweat sliding down her temples. Her eyes were moist, looking pitiful as if about to cry. Just days ago she'd been a normal college student. Who could have imagined she'd now be transporting bodies?
Martha felt like she was helping a crime boss dispose of evidence. Her gaze toward John grew increasingly fearful. First impressions really could be deadly—she'd actually thought this was a good person.
What kind of good person silently incapacitates someone and hides them in a car trunk?
John sat in the back seat with a dark expression. After all, any normal person suddenly encountering a sleazy predator with his mind full of inappropriate scenarios wouldn't be in a good mood. Originally planning to use Hume as bait, John had changed his mind. He planned to find somewhere isolated to make Hume spill everything.
"Drive properly." Getting angrier the more he thought about it, John said with a dark face, then fell silent.
Martha could only resign herself to being aboard this pirate ship. She was terrified the entire way that some police officer would stop them for inspection. On edge, she didn't even dare speed, finally crawling slowly back to her apartment.
Opening the trunk, Martha resignedly came to move the "body." John walked ahead while Martha carried Hume into her house. Fortunately, there weren't many people around this area.
Dropping the unconscious form heavily, Martha discovered her physical strength had improved somewhat. Previously, while she wasn't exactly weak, carrying an adult male would have been difficult. Becoming a vampire wasn't entirely without benefits.
But having not eaten for so long, she hadn't noticed during the nerve-wracking journey. Coming to her senses, Martha was nearly fainting from hunger. She rummaged through her home's food supply—a sandwich from several days ago that might have spoiled.
Not caring about that, she stuffed the sandwich directly into her mouth. Martha took a satisfied bite and chewed vigorously.
Soon, Martha was covering her mouth and running to the trash can to vomit.
"Why?" Martha couldn't believe it. She clearly no longer wanted to drink blood, but eating food still caused severe nausea.
John walked to Hume's unconscious form and grabbed the pen. With a vampire's vitality, this wouldn't kill him, since it hadn't damaged the brain—it had just penetrated "a little bit."
"You've only suppressed the bloodthirsty urge. Properly speaking, you're essentially still a vampire."
Applying force with his fingers, the pen was pulled out.
"Pshh!"
Blood sprayed out like a fountain. Throwing the pen aside, John drew his wand and quietly counted down.
"3, 2, 1..."
Hume's eyes snapped open. The moment he saw John, he tried to pounce and drain his blood.
John waved his wand, magic flying out. "Relashio!"
Hume was hit by red sparks and flew toward a chair. John waved his wand again, and the chair transformed into ropes, binding Hume tightly. He could only rage helplessly.
"Who are you?" Hume's eye socket was bleeding, looking utterly miserable as he roared, "Let me go, or you'll face great disaster!"
"Great disaster?" John scoffed and waved his hand. "There will be great disaster, but not for me." He tapped Hume's head with his wand, saying mockingly, "But for you."
"You... ahh!"
Hume felt something pulling at his brain from the outside. Under Martha's terrified expression as she made the sign of the cross, silvery-white threads were being extracted from Hume's head.
John's eyes became vertical pupils as he stared at Hume, saying in a low voice, "Let me see where he might be."
Rotating his wand, he used Legilimency to extract Hume's memories. Hume's eyes rolled back and he finally lost consciousness.
John's wand now had a large ball of silvery-white threads wound around it. He flung the ball out, and it exploded directly on the ceiling, turning into smoke that drifted down. The surrounding scene changed.
John raised his right hand. "Let me see what's been happening during this time."
He manipulated these memories, twisting them into an immersive experience. Hume's life was quite fulfilling. It could basically be divided into: sleeping, preying on others, bringing more victims, feeding, and facilitating others' feeding while he slept.
This guy wasn't wronged at all.
Martha saw scenes of Hume feeding on young women and swallowed involuntarily.
Hume was a subordinate of a young faction vampire lord. His boss was called Cooper, one of the most powerful vampire groups in London. Because he could often bring beautiful young women as blood sources, Hume's status in the territory wasn't low. He was Cooper's capable assistant, so he knew many of Cooper's affairs.
Like the current matter—Cooper's revenge plan.
With his territory destroyed, Cooper couldn't swallow this insult. This wasn't his first time dealing with the Daywalker—he knew how to find him. And regarding the person who destroyed the territory, Cooper's subordinates reported finding traces of two people in subway tunnels.
Cooper immediately decided on revenge, sending his subordinates to hunt them down. Hume should have been among them, but due to his outstanding abilities, he was assigned to scout new blood sources for Cooper, convenient for recovery after battle.
Moreover, Cooper was ambitious—not only planning to move against the Daywalker, but also preparing to act against the Vampire Council.
The memories exploded, and John stroked his chin saying, "Subway tunnels. Going there now, we should be able to make it in time."
John stood up, preparing to leave.
Martha nervously called out, "What about him?"
John glanced at the unconscious Hume with rolled-back eyes, remembering Martha's earlier cross gesture, and raised an eyebrow. "Are you Catholic?"
Seeing Martha nod, John said meaningfully, "I do have a good place for him."
Soon, Martha regretted her admission.
At the church cross, Hume was nailed by both hands, hanging there. Just waiting for sunrise, he would bathe in the morning sunlight and die peacefully.
(TL NOTE: Unfortunately, my LOTR: Playing Minecraft in Middle-earth book was mistakenly flagged as spam on Webnovel and removed. I'll re-upload it under a different title by tomorrow at the latest. Thank you for your patience!)