"Dad! What happened to your eye?"

Thaddeus pulled his finger quickly away from the bandage he'd been rubbing at. In the three hours since he'd put them on, they were already loose.

"It's my eyelid," Thaddeus responded. "Some infection I just discovered this morning. I've already scheduled a doctor's appointment for this afternoon. I imagine he'll prescribe an antibiotic and it'll be gone within two weeks. It's certainly nothing that you should be worried about."

He had enough to deal with already himself. Even without the bandages, he couldn't keep his left eye open. The skin around it was bumpy and warm, practically a magnet to his fingers. He'd spent the morning squinting one-eyed at his emails and simultaneously moving his hands towards and away from the blemish.

"Are you sure?" William poured a bowl of corn flakes and sat down. "Will you even be able to drive?"

"Not if I want to keep my license." He stood up, heading towards the medicine cabinet sitting above the dishwasher. "You can take an Uber to school. I'll pay you back for it."

"Is that how you're getting to work?"

"I'll be working from home today." He pulled out a bottle of ibuprofen and swallowed two dry. "I'm serious. The only thing you should be thinking about today is that American government final of yours."

William laughed. "As if! Dad, I've already memorized the study guide." He swallowed a large spoonful of cereal, milk dripping down his chin. "I'll text you after it, okay?"

Thaddeus nodded, then motioned towards the bathroom.


Thaddeus awoke with a jolt. There was a pulsing burn around his eye. A few bandages had come loose, and now lay curled against his pillow.

He frantically dug through his sheets until he found his phone, flicking it on and hurriedly pulling it to his ear.

"Dr. Sivana, did you get my email?"

Thaddeus blinked. "Gloria, what's going on? I thought I told you that I was out today."

"I know that, sir, and I apologize if it was a bad time. But our newest patient says she forwarded you something last night and needs you to see it. She's been calling me about it once every hour."

Thaddeus' brow furrowed. "What did she send?"

"She never specified it, beyond saying that it would help with her treatment. As soon as you're able, I'd suggest looking at it." His secretary cleared her throat. "How are you feeling?"

"Well, I'm about ready to gouge my eye out." He sat up, checking his bedroom's electronic clock. "I see the doctor in two hours."

"Feel better. And do check her email when you can."

"Of course."

As soon as he hung up, Thaddeus hurried to his email. He'd only skimmed it early that morning. Right then, when the back of his eye felt like it was being held against a fire like a marshmallow on a stick, reading hadn't been his top priority. Now, though, the message from 10:30 p.m. the night before, with its large attachment, caught his eye.

When he clicked it, a thirty second video appeared. It buffered momentarily before starting.

Pictured was a messy bedroom, complete with clothes and fast food bags strewn across the floor. An electronic clock, not too different from the one on his own nightstand, read 7:38. Judging by the lighting, it was morning.

It glowed a steady green for a few moments, even changed to 7:39.

Thaddeus' heart was pounding in his ears even before the clock began flashing yellow. The crack beneath a door at the far edge of the video screen glowed with a golden light. An unseen inhabitant screamed.

Thaddeus narrowed his eye. Whatever the yellow stuff was, it was hard to make out, even though he had his suspicions.

With a shaking hand, he hit the pause button.

There it was.

The seal of Solomon.


Thaddeus bit his lip until it bled. The pain was sharp and immediate, enough to pull his mind away from his eye for the first time that day. He held the knife out in front of the study door. Carefully, he leaned forward and began carving.

Seven symbols repeated seven times - it was so simple that a grade schooler probably could have figured it out. All those years of searching for patients and digging through millenias old legends and this was the key back.

Sometimes he half wondered if his life began when the wizard sent for him that cold Christmas night. Had it been paused again when he returned or pushed onto fast forward?

Suddenly the years didn't matter. Now he had the key. Now he was going to fulfill a decades old promise.

Wood shavings decorated the floor. A few crunched beneath Thaddeus' feet.

As soon as he pulled his knife out from the last symbol, the etchings began to glow with a golden light. Smoke flew in from the surrounding cracks, caressing Thaddeus' face.

Just as quickly as he reached for the doorknob, he pulled it back. It was cool as ever, not the inferno he'd suspected, maybe even colder. Taking it again, he turned it and pushed the door forward.

Gone was his hallway and the doors and framed photos that lined its walls. Stepping forward, Thaddeus' foot met stone instead of carpet.

The surrounding air was damp and chill. His coat forgotten on a chair in his study, he shivered. He turned around, eyeing the doorway and the familiar room beyond it. How many hours had he spent pouring through a book in there or reviewing a day's worth of notes in there?

Thaddeus took another step forward. When he'd first arrived here years before, he'd never seen this part of Shazam's fortress. It was a room full of doors, big and small, square and round, and every color imaginable (a few, he noted, were shades he'd never imagined, let alone seen). Vague images from a movie William had watched countlessly as a child flashed through his mind.

Keep going.

The voice pushing him forward was his own. The sins had enacted radio silence sometime since he woke up early that morning and never quite fell back asleep. He held his hand against a grey rock wall. Even here, his eye ached.

The next room he came to was vaguely familiar. Smashed glass littered the floor, while surrounding plants drooped (as if, he noted, finally withering from seemingly decades without light). Whatever display had once stood was now forgotten to history.

The throne room was still further down. Thaddeus' throat was dry. He'd envisioned himself facing the wizard countless times, always with a righteous word on his tongue.

He shook his head. No, right now he needed the eye. Fading power or not, Shazam was still a wizard. Compared to him, Thaddeus was a magician who was almost out of tricks. The wizard would sooner chop out a silver tongue than Thaddeus' head.

It was only when he was almost to the sins' that the wizard finally noticed him. He stood up from his throne, hobbling forward on his staff.

"Who are you?"

Thaddeus rushed towards the eye. He could hear the sins again now, first all at once and then individually. In another situation it might have been perplexing. In his brain, they had whispered as one. Now, it was hard to hear what one was trying to shout above the other.

Had Thaddeus not stumbled on a rock on the way towards the eye, then he might have been hit by a bolt of lightning. He crawled forward on his hands and knees while his eye remained locked on the wizard.

I'm not going to die like this.

Not here, not now, not when so much was at stake. This was his life, his goal, his meaning.

The glowing globe surrounding the eye vanished like a fog when he held his hand out towards it. The tips of his right index and middle fingers rubbed against the eye's cool metal surface.

"You have no idea what you are unleashing, Thaddeus Sivana!"

Ah, so the wizard did remember him. He smirked as his hands wrapped fully around the eye. Old as Shazam was, he wasn't senile.


The pain in his eye was gone, almost as if it had never existed. Thaddeus ran his hand against the cold lump where his eye had been, sending a stream of sparks from his fingertips.

Hurry, he will awaken soon.

That was Lust or, perhaps, Envy. Thaddeus turned from the smoky figures surrounding him to the crumpled figure on the floor. He hadn't even had to think about attacking the wizard. As soon as the eye had floated into his head (funny, he hadn't felt a thing as it no doubt ripped through his flesh), sparks had ripped out from his fingertips.

There was an Eagles song about that.

Thaddeus grinned. All that power and the wizard couldn't even duck out of the way. He hurried towards the body, his steps sure.

"Is he-?"

He will be soon enough. That is no longer your concern.

"I want to see him dead."

You will!

That sounded like Gluttony.

We must go, champion.

The sins were one again.

"Of course." Thaddeus took one last look at the wizard, then hurried back towards the hall of doors.