Chapter fifty nine

As I was driving back to the hotel I got a strange text from Delilah's phone asking me to meet her in front of the Nobel Peace center.

This was very strange because we already had an arrangement to meet at our room in the hotel before going to the restaurant downstairs to eat our complimentary dinner. We even had a plan to order everything on the menu just to mess with the chefs. Why would Delilah change our plans all of a sudden and without any explanations? Hell the text didn't even have a snarky comment or some sort of a joke which was always present when Delilah was texting me.

Another odd thing was the location, I knew for a fact that she didn't even like the Nobel Peace center. When I asked her if she had visited it yet she had told me that she didn't want to , in fact her exact words were ' why would I want to visit a place built by money earned by spilling the blood of countless people to assuage the guilt of one of the greatest mass murderers in history. The fact that his name is associated with a prize to reward the greatest achievements of humanity sickens me. In addition to that there are no good places to shop around there so I would rather go somewhere else.'

I thought she was being a bit harsh but she seemed adamant on not going there and now she suddenly changed her mind and wants to meet there at this late hour? It was just too suspicious so I immediately tried to call her but it just went straight to voicemail. When I tried texting her she didn't respond. Something was definitely wrong, either she was in trouble or this was a trap. Whatever the case maybe Delilah was probably in danger so I had to go and rescue her.

I entered the Nobel Peace center as my destination on my GPS and gunned it in the direction it was pointing, swerving in and out of traffic carelessly.On the way there I took out two Berreta hand guns out of the glove compartment and put them on the dashboard in case I needed quick access to them.

As I was approaching the two story building I noticed that there were no lights in the area. It was pretty late and it was winter so night had already fallen making the area eerily dark. The only light came from my car's headlights and a train that was passing by , a second later the train had already passed making the whole area dark except for the two circles illuminated by my headlights. All the street lights had been switched off turning the whole area into a place of darkness and shadows.

I slowed down and started to look around, for a second I thought I saw movement in the shadows but then it disappeared. I couldn't really see anything in these conditions but I had a secret weapon, soul sight. It is an ability that I had developed while healing that allowed me to see the souls of people if I concentrated and using this technique allowed me to see the man following my slow moving car while he hid in the shadows. He wasn't skulking around and hiding behind trashcans like ninjas on TV , he literally wrapped shadows around himself to hide his form. I couldn't see what he really looked like because even his soul was shrouded by shadow making him blurry but I was still able to make out his blurry outline using my soul sight.

I kept my eyes on the strange shadow man as I approached the building. The area around the place was completely empty and dark except for a single street light that was on unlike all the others around it. The light shone down brightly in the darkness illuminating two figures standing there on the sidewalk, the first one was Delilah still disguised to look like me. For some reason she was just standing there frozen and unmoving. Next to her was an elderly man with silver gray hair glinting in the light provided by the orange glow of the sodium lamp. He stood there nonchalantly smoking a cigar like he didn't have a care in the world.

A part of me wanted to run out there and quickly rescue Delilah but a smarter and more rational part of me clubbed that part down. I carefully scanned the area and I was able to make out five more of the shadow men hiding in several places.

I didn't know who these people were but they were obviously dangerous, they had subdued Delilah, which is no easy feat by itself , and then used her as bait to lure me in. They had set up this very clever ambush ,they literally put her on display to make me focus on her while they used the darkness to position themselves while remaining unseen. It was a well thought out plan that marked them as professionals who have experience in this type of things and combined with the fact that they were able to pull this kind of thing in such a public place made them even more dangerous. I was especially surprised that they could keep people out of the area.

I carefully approached Delilah and the man standing next to her while keeping an eye on the shadow men closing in on me from behind. I grabbed the two Beretta hand guns off the dashboard and exited the vehicle. The old man didn't even flinch when he saw that I was armed, he only smiled like he was looking at a silly child holding a paper gun and pretending to be a soldier,

"There is no need for guns here Ms Sophia, I am not here to hurt you. In fact I am here to help you."

For some reason his words didn't reassure me.