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"Wait, back up," Lily interjected. "Wasn't the Dead Sea already around when Solomon hid the scroll here? How did he get it down to the tunnel and up into wherever he stashed it? They didn't exactly have a scuba shop around the corner. Has the sea gotten bigger since then?"
I squinted at the tablet screen as Cole zoomed in on the underwater cliff, his long fingers deftly navigating the digital map.
"Actually," he said. "The sea was larger back then. And deeper. The Dead Sea is created by rainwater filtering down from the mountains and back then there weren’t as many towns syphoning off the water. It was bigger and much deeper."
"More water?" I pictured an endless expanse of blue where now there were just salt crystals and mud flats.
"Yep," Cole confirmed. "Whole thing's been shrinking for decades."
“So why have a secret tunnel leading deep underwater from a town fourteen miles away?” asked Lily.
"An escape tunnel, perhaps?"
I turned to see Theo leaning casually against one of the tent poles, dressed in the same way as Alastor, a laptop tucked under his arm. A jolt went through me at the sight of him, and I felt that strange pull again. He was looking at Cole, not me, and I felt the oddest flash of jealousy. What in heaven is wrong with you, I asked myself. Get a grip.
"Or a secret entrance," Alastor replied, eyes not leaving the screen. "I doubt it was built before the city was destroyed."
“You think Solomon built it?” asked Theo, and Alastor nodded.
“Sodom had been destroyed long before Solomon was even born. He hid the scroll here for a reason. Probably because the area was avoided by most people due to the destruction. It’s a great way to stash something - put it somewhere no one has the ability or technology to reach.”
Lily looked confused. "But that’s the point. How'd Solomon build something like that underwater? He didn’t have the technology either."
"Solomon had a few tricks up his sleeve," Cole said. "Controlling demons was one of them, and some demons don't need to breathe. Solomon used demons to build temples and palaces, I would assume he used demons to build the tunnel too."
“That evil son of a bitch!” exclaimed Lily.
I frowned. “Evil? Why? it was just a convenient workforce. Using their abilities to create the most secure hiding place possible. Very smart.”
The others all turned to look at me.
“What?”
“Convenient workforce?” asked Cole. “You mean slavery. Slaves forced to work underwater for long periods of time doing heavy labour.”
“Hardly slavery,” I said, rolling my eyes. “They weren’t humans, and without Solomon’s control, they would have just been causing problems on earth.”
“It was slavery,” Alastor said shortly. He moved towards me, until he towered over me, and I was forced to look up at him. He was trying to intimidate me, I realised. I swallowed and held his hard stare. “It was cruel, and it was wrong. Demons might not be humans, but Solomon had no right to imprison them, to make them work for him, and no right to torture them to death either.”
“Building a tunnel is hardly being tortured to death,” I snapped. His closeness was doing confusing things to my mind and my body, and I was struggling to focus.
“Minor demon 101, Sariel,” he said. “How do you trap a demon?”
“Solomon’s circle,” I answered.
“Or?”
My heart sank as I realised what he was getting at.
“A circle of salt,” I said quietly.
“Because?”
“Salt causes excruciating pain to demons,” I said.
Alastor nodded. “And you think being forced to perform hard labour underwater in a sea so salty that no life survives here, you think that’s not torture?”
I swallowed again. “I…”
