"You take care of yourself now, Billy, okay?" Annabelle pulled William into a hug. When they pulled apart, she turned towards Thaddeus. "Thank you so much, Uncle Thaddeus. I don't know what I would have done these last few days without you."

He pulled her up against him. "There's no thanks needed. I just wish I could have given you two a better holiday."

She sniffled. "Yeah, well that's not your fault, is it?" When she stepped away from him, she looked him in the eyes. "You take care of yourself too."

He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. "Of course. Be sure to get straight A's, all right?"

She gave a weak laugh. "Now don't start sounding like my mom."

He and William watched her pass through security and into the waiting area. Her flight back to Nashville would begin boarding in twenty minutes. It wouldn't be too much longer before they themselves headed home, though he'd decided to stay a few extra days in case the police needed him. In a few short days, he'd say goodbye to Philadelphia forever.

"You hungry for lunch?" Thaddeus asked.

William shook his head. "I'm not hungry at all."

"Is this about...?"

"No." He wouldn't meet Thaddeus' gaze. "Just sad to see Annie go, I guess."


For Christmas, they got Chinese food and saw a movie. No wonder Freddy had thought they were Jewish!

Billy finished off the last of the popcorn, then threw the bag into the trash. He'd shoved it towards his dad a few times during the flick, but he'd always pushed it away. Halfway through, he'd closed his eye. Billy had considered waking him but had stopped himself. He'd been so quiet over the past few days, there in body but not in spirit.

"Did you like it?" He knew the answer already but asked anyway.

His father grunted. "Anywhere else you want to go?"

"No thank you, I'm kind of beat."

After Annie had left, he'd considered telling his dad about Freddy's offer but stopped himself. His father had enough family drama of his own already to deal with.

Just the thought of what his father had told him made bile rise in Billy's throat. Annie hadn't seemed able to comprehend it.

Could he? He supposed he didn't really. It was better to just push it to the back of his mind, to pretend that his father had been describing a movie's plot. That incident had occurred, he told himself, in someone else's life.

Freddy's face flashed through his mind. What was he up to? Had Darla recieved her Wonder Woman action figure yet? According to Freddy, she adored her new Batgirl. He'd filled Billy in on the presents he'd gotten other family members, too. He and Pedro had both chipped in to buy Mary a CalTech hoodie. Eugene had gotten a new case for his Nintendo Switch. Pedro had gotten some, quote, weird diet shake mixes that probably taste like dog crap. Rosa got scented candles. Victor got a new coffee mug.

No, Billy couldn't be sure just what they were up to that day. But something told him their Christmas was going miles better than his was.


The wizard lives.

End him before he can find a new champion.

Waiting only dooms yourself.

Thaddeus pushed the sins away. They'd get their revenge on the wizard in due time. It wasn't as if the old man had any strength left to regain. He was probably still stooped over somewhere in his cave, frantically searching for some perfect soul. Whether he died by Thaddeus' hand or not, his final wish would remain unfulfilled.

He couldn't leave, not now. William was still tossing and turning in the bed across from him. For a few hours, he'd gone still. Then, he began to moan out words that Thaddeus couldn't make out. The same thing had happened on the two nights prior.

A lump formed in his throat. He'd told the boy the police's words only because he didn't want him to find out about it on the news.

Every time he tried to bring it up again, William would look away. The boy always had some new subject on the tip of his tongue.

He sighed. Even if William didn't get much sleep that night, he'd have a long plane ride ahead of him the next day. Their bags sat packed against the wall.

Then, once they were back home, he could deal with the wizard. Finish this nonsense once and for all. And then...

And then what? The sins gnawed at his mind, cried out for more more more more-

But what they wanted he couldn't do. Soon enough he'd have all he needed - a life free of his family, a world cleansed of the wizard's prescense, magic at his disposal. He didn't need the unimaginable power that the sins whispered to him of, to have his boot held down on the neck of the world.

The sooner they realized that, the better things would be for all of them.


"Wake me when they land." His father was out cold almost as soon as the in-flight safety training ended and the plane was off the ground.

Billy pulled a book from his backpack, flipping through it but not quite reading it. Outside there was nothing but blue skies and thick clouds for miles.

He had called Freddy that morning and said they were leaving. He hadn't elaborated. Instead of asking questions, Freddy had gone on about the latest episode of his podcast that he was working on.

"That figure you got Darla gave me the idea. I hadn't looked into it too deeply beforehand, but Batgirl hasn't been seen in almost two years. It's like she fell off the face of the earth. What do you think happened to her?"

"How should I know?"

He thought back to what Freddy had said but could only half remember the theories he'd listed. She'd been arrested and was being held hostage somewhere by the feds. She'd gone rogue, abandoning Batman, maybe even gone evil. Maybe a villain had killed her. Which?

Freddy had asked him if he'd like to be a guest star on the show. This time, he hadn't asked again when Billy said no.

His phone in airplane mode, he flicked through the photos that Annie had texted him of her Christmas back home. Pictures of sweet potato and pumpkin pies made his mouth water, but they were only the tip of the iceberg. She'd set up a hot chocolate bar complete with sprinkles, whipped cream, and every type of candy under the sun. Roasted chicken and turkey were the crowning jewels of a table packed with enough food to feed an army. And the presents! Annie had sent about a million photos of her mother proudly holding up the blanket that she had knit for her.

Have you told her yet? Billy had asked the night before.

She texted back in less than two minutes. I can't, not when all of her family is here. Besides, why should I ruin her Christmas?

"I don't know where to begin to explain this to you kids. I certainly don't want to..."

He thought again of Batgirl, Annie, Freddy, anything that crossed his mind. They passed through his mind quickly, but his father's words echoed through his brain endlessly.

Billy stood, walking past the seats full of tired families and dreary eyed business types. There was a small line outside of the bathroom, so he waited about seven minutes before he got inside. Once he did, he slammed it shut and turned the lock as hard as he could.

The face staring back at him in the mirror was unmistakably his own, but that didn't make it any easier to look at. He turned the faucet on and splashed lukewarm water on his face. After what could have been thirty minutes or thirty hours, he shut the tap off, wiped his hands on the sides of his jeans, and reached for the lock.

For a moment, he was dumbfounded. Try as he might, he couldn't pull the lock to open the door. When his fingers hurt too much from vainly clutching at it, he balled his hands into fists and began pounding on the door.

"Hey! Can somebody get help?"

No reply came.

He turned, meeting his gaze's reflection momentarily before the mirror iced over. Billy froze, watching as ice spread across the walls. There must have been rough winds outside because suddenly the room was shaking.

"Hey! Can anybody hear me?"

He squished his eyes shut, tried to force away whatever was happening. When he opened his eyes again, the room was icier than ever.

"Someone, please!" If nothing else in the room was, at least Billy knew his voice was real. His breath fogged as he spoke.

Pulling his phone from his pocket, he frantically turned it on only to be greeted by flashing yellow symbols. With shaking hands, he forced down the power button, but to no avail. His phone hit the floor, the screen cracking on the impact. Small bits of glass littered the floor. When he picked it up, the symbols were still there.

He began pulling at the lock again. "Please! Can anybody hear me?" He forced tears back from his eyes. "Dad! Dad, can you hear me? Anyone?"

The plane suddenly shook so hard that he was knocked on his butt. Billy gritted his teeth. Glass dug into his hands.

"Please, someone-"

With another long shake from below him, the door suddenly opened. Billy put his hands to his face.

"H-Hello?"

There was no reply. No matter how many times he blinked, all he saw before him was a long rocky hall. It was like something the dwarfs from The Lord of the Rings would live in.

Billy pulled the door shut, slamming the lock into place.

"Please... If you can hear me..."

When he opened the door again, he was in the same rocky cavern. No words left his mouth, just a long, sharp scream.


"Shit," Billy mumbled, rubbing at the side of his throbbing head. His shoulders ached as if someone had been sitting on them. He sat up, blinking to get his eyes adjusted to the light.

"No."

He was still in that creepy cave. He turned around, searching desperately for the door to the frozen bathroom, for his phone, for anything.

He sat there for a long time, taking in heavy, fast breaths, half sure that he was going to pass out again. With shaking hands, he wiped pebbles and dust from the front of his hoodie.

This was all a nightmare, some wild hallucination caused by stress or jank hotel food. He reminded himself of this as he stood up and slowly began to walk around the room, his hands held out ahead of him. His legs moved slowly and unevenly, as though his muscles had been replaced with jelly. Was this how Freddy felt?

"Hey, can anyone hear me? Hello?"

He came into a room filled with doors. No matter which he pulled onto, they remained locked as tightly as the bathroom door had been. Kicking them only made his leg throb with pain. The next room was filled with broken objects. Smashed jewelry boxes and treasure chests, busted mirrors and the sharded remains of a glass dome surrounded him. Billy did his best to step around them.

Soon, on shaking legs, he arrived into a long hallway. There was a bit more light here than there had been in the rest of the cave, though he saw only tall stone walls leading into darkness when he looked above him.

A newfound strength shot through him when he saw the vague image of a man before him. He hurried forward.

"Billy Batson." The man could have been tall once, probably had been. Now, though, his back was stooped, held down as if by some unseen weight. His hair was storm cloud grey, his eyes glowing an unnatural blue. His robe, red and long enough to cover his feet, had a neon yellow lightning bolt stitched into its center.

It was glowing as well. Billy wasn't sure why that stuck out to him, not in this place that made Oz and Wonderland look everyday, but it did. For a moment, he kept his eyes locked on the glowing shape.

"I... I think you have the wrong person." Billy tried to keep his voice from squeaking. "My name is William Sivana."

"Don't you dare speak that name!" The man hit the ground with the tip of the staff he was holding, sending sparks flying across the room. Billy had to blink a few times before his vision cleared.

"I'm sorry."

"Billy Batson," the man repeated, stepping towards him slowly. "I have called upon you in my time of great need."

"Who are you?"

"I am Shazam, the last of the magic counsel. Once there were seven other wizards and witches as strong as myself, who could share in my power. They are no more."

"Yes?" Okay, so he was in who knows where with a really high guy who hadn't changed clothes since the eighties. It figured.

"My brothers and sisters died defending the world from the terror of the Seven Deadly Sins." He tapped his cane again, and from it rose golden images of cities long forgotten. People ran from glowing yellow monsters. A woman came racing towards him, her lips pulled back into a silent scream. Billy tensed, but before she could ram into him, she vanished into dust.

"Yes?" Billy repeated. He didn't know who this guy was or what virtual reality game he'd stepped into, but suddenly Billy was craving microwaved airline meals.

"For years I held them back as their only prison warden. I searched the world for ages to find a champion, someone who could share in my power and protect the world when I no longer could. My power weakened. No champion came." He gestured towards a pile of rubble that lined the hallways. Billy hadn't taken much notice of it before. He'd been too focused on the wizard, the only other person here, wherever the hell here was.

"Once I held the sins back, protecting the world from their wrath. Now they have escaped into the world again. I can no longer wait for a champion. My power has called upon you, Billy Batson. Submit to me and I will give you my magic." He was standing in front of Billy now.

"Seven Deadly Sins... Yeah..." So was this guy Catholic? No, they hated magic. His mind flashed back to an article that his sixth grade English teacher had made the class read about religious groups burning Harry Potter books.

"You couldn't begin to imagine the damage that they could do to this world." He held his staff out. "Take my staff and say my name. Accept my power."

Billy's mouth dried.

"Grab my staff!"

He stepped back. "Uh, sorry dude, but stranger danger."

This time, the man thrust the staff at him. Billy's fingers brushed against the gnarled wood and-

And he sat in the center of a brightly lit throne room, a much fancier version of the one before him. The place was so filled with gold and sparkling gem stones that it was comical. In the seats around him sat two other men and four women. They looked nothing alike, did not even speak the same language, but they were connected by a force stronger than the magic that shot from their fingertips. One of the women, with mahogany skin and black hair that went down to her feet, looked at him with glowing lavender eyes.

"We cannot hold them back for much longer." It was not the words she spoke that he truly understood, but the feeling behind them.

"We've held them off long enough. So long as we continue to combine our forces, they cannot defeat us." The man who spoke's hair wasn't blonde, but an almost jaundiced shade of yellow. He was impossibly thin, with skin so clear that it looked grey because of the rocks behind him.

"They feed off of our fighting," came another woman. Her short-cropped hair was violet in color, her cat-like eyes glowing green. Within her wrinkled brown hands was a staff much like the wizard's.

"But even you," Billy boomed, except it wasn't his voice but the wizard's, "must see that even we are not enough. If they escape again..."

And then he wasn't in the throne room any longer, but standing in front of a pyramid. Atop, glowing in the sun, was a four-armed monster with green wings. The wizard-who-was-Billy-but-wasn't sent a crackling stream of lightning at it from the tip of his staff. It fell, crying out, but its shriek was lost in a sea of screams as people rushed past.

Then he stood before a row of graves carrying a pain in his heart greater than any blow could inflict. Statues cried out to him, their taunts echoing in his ears as he clutched his staff tighter and his vision went red.

Then came the stream of people. Their clothes changed, and they were every race, nationality, ability, and origin under the sun. Men in togas, women in corsets, the old, the young, artists, merchants, cowboys, laborers, soldiers, nurses, chief executive officers. Always different but always unworthy.

Billy pulled away. He stared at the man, at his staff, at the cave around him that was so big that it threatened to swallow him forever.

"You saw."

Billy nodded. "I... I still don't understand. Mister, I'm not a champion."

"You can and you must be one." He thrust his staff at Billy again, who closed his eyes to force the images back. "There isn't much time left. Say my name!"

Billy gave a hard swallow before speaking. "Sh..."

"Say it!"

"Shazam!"

Billy's vision exploded. Lightning crackled, turning his world a blinding white before again going black. Shazam's staff clattered to the floor. The wizard's hands shook, turning to dust as the woman from his earlier vision had.

"Stop the sins! Reclaim the glory of our brothers and sisters!"

For the longest time afterwards, Billy stared at the spot where Shazam had stood. Other than his staff, there was no trace of him left.

Billy shuddered. His hands weren't his own, his body impossibly large. He stared down at the red fabric covering and the tip of a white cape, his brain only half comprehending what he saw.

"What happened?" He was yelling again. Perhaps if he spoke loud enough then someone, anyone would finally answer him. The voice was foreign; when he spoke heard only a stranger. "Please, Shazam!"

Another explosion. There was enough force behind it to knock Billy off of his feet. When he opened his eyes again, he was on his knees. His palms were bleeding, and tears stung at the edges of his eyes.

He... He'd turned into an adult, some sort of superhero.

A superhero! Freddy knew everything about superheroes. The dude probably even knew who Batman really was but wouldn't admit it unless he was being waterboarded. Freddy would certainly know what to do. He already had a whole list of things that he would do if he ever got superpowers, and had even showed it a few times to Billy as he updated it.

Billy closed his eyes. "Freddy! Freddy Freeman!"


Thaddeus pulled off his eye mask and blinked momentarily at the light.

Either William was in the bathroom doing anything and everything except what it was made for or he was somewhere else. Thaddeus couldn't quite imagine where. Had he tried sneaking into first class? Met someone else his age on the plane and gotten into some longwinded discussion about video games?

Whatever it was, he couldn't sit around waiting any longer. He stared at the empty seat beside him. Then, holding the chair in front of him, he pushed himself up and hurried down the aisle, his heartbeat echoing in his ears.