[05:01 AM UTC January 7th 2009]

Constantine was hunched forward, his folded together hands pressed against the thin lines of his lips as he pursed them together tightly in thought. "Don't you think it's a bit early to start having suicidal thoughts, mate?"

The boy snarled. "This isn't a joke!" The anxious looking kid started pacing back and forth, trying his best to wear a hole in his carpet. To be fair, it was shitty carpet. "It was five days ago- maybe six. My mother had been put on the pyre to burn- as I was. The last thing I remember…" The kid sounded a little choked up but shook his head quickly. The determined look on his face.

"The last thing I remember is that it 1692. Now it's 2009, and the world is… weird, strange- there are carriages that work without horses! There are little handheld things that people stare at! Your buildings touch the sky and-"the kid was hyperventilating now and Constantine was really hoping he would pass out or something- because he couldn't comfort people. Much less a kid.

His pacing stopped and the boy threw up his arms frantically. Not seeming to notice that his chest was heaving up and down. He just kept talking, like he couldn't stop. "So, I just started following the largest magical source I could- hoping that whatever it was would be useful. It turned out to be you." He hissed, teeth clenched. "But I could never get a lock on you, you kept moving- and the days turned into weeks and weeks into months- and I thought I'd never find it-you-"

It was getting downright painful to watch. So, Constantine finally decided to step in. "Kid- calm down."

"I am calm!" The kid snarled. Good, Constantine could work with anger. Panic- not so much. The kid balled his hands into fists so tightly that they trembled beside him. The man wasn't sure if it was from anger or fear.

Constantine almost wondered if he could get the kid to feel better if he goaded him to punch him again- but then he remembered how bad the first punch hurt. Instead, he just breathed deeply- knowing that the kid was watching him. Constantine did a show of it, holding his breath for a few moments before letting it out in a long exhale. Then repeated. The kid either subconsciously or purposefully mimicked his actions, and the trembling stopped as he got control of his breathing. Following Constantine's breath.

Thank God, crisis averted.

"Look, mate-"

"Henry." He bit out. The kid finally collapsing on the couch on the opposite side of the beaten coffee table from Constantine. "My name is Henry Ancock." The kid- Henry, his mind supplies- looks even smaller while settled into the broken and busted black leather couch. His shoulders hunched and any bravado he had earlier was slipping. "My name is Henry Ancock, and I was supposed to be burned to death…I was. I should be dead- so why am I not dead?" He asked.

Constantine couldn't give him an answer to that. By all accounts- necromancy should be impossible. There is no way to bring the dead back to life, that is what every magic book and every witch worth her hex bag would tell you. See, magic always had a price- and even basic spells had it. That price just being the amount of energy that it would consume. That, and the invocation that was casted when applying the spell. Yet for a person and their soul? You couldn't accurately identify the price on something like that. So, everyone just assumed it was a price that was too large to afford.

If the kid was telling the truth, then whoever brought him back was a big spender, and that was quite disturbing. Someone- or something with that much raw magical power…

Taking a large inhale- John looked over the seven-year-old. "I can sense magic on you, but nothing that I would assume to come from a large level spell. Maybe traces of it, but it's hard to tell already with your magic." He remarked. It would be easier to tell if the kid also wasn't a magic user. "Most of the ambient energy could have worn off while you were looking for me, or you could have absorbed it into yourself. You do have a very large magical energy pool."

The kid gave a small prideful look, and Constantine couldn't tell why- but it looked infinitely better on the kid's- Henry's- face than that small defeated little look. "It's always been like that."

John finally leaned back in his own seat. Silently mulling over the information he's been given. He'd have known if the kid was lying, unless he was a better actor than the kid was letting on. Though Constantine doubted it. So, either this kid was telling the truth, or even something more convoluted was going on here to make the kid think all of this was true. "Alright."

"Alright?" The kid asked. Constantine could tell he was nervous, though he tried to do that thing where his features would smooth out into something attempting to resemble a professional face. Though the rigidness in his shoulders gave him away.

"Yeah. Alright. I'm in. I'll do it."

He saw the boy's shoulder's sag and his eyes betrayed his relief.

Constantine just shrugged. "A nice bit of a mystery to be sorted out. Might as well get to it." He rolled his shoulders. It's not like he had much of anything else lined up anyways. "I'll need to find out where you were buried." He didn't miss the wince the kid gave. "Some lingering energy might be there, and we might be able to find whoever did the spell using the remnants of it. I just have to find a place to hole you up until I figure out what's going on-"

John would never mention the way he flinched at the way that the little crotch goblin rocketed up from the couch and to his feet. Henry was like a bunch of explosives packed into one very tiny package. Amusing and deadly in equal measure. "No. I didn't come all this way just to get pushed to the side." He snarled. Constantine wasn't sure what was worse, mopey panicked kid, or righteously angry kid. Both seemed to be a pain in the ass for him.

"Look, crotch goblin-" he ignored the indignant squawk the boy gave at the nickname. "I don't do the whole…kid thing." He made some vague hand gestures. "They are annoying, smelly, delicate and needy. They cramp my style." When the kid scrunched his face up in confusion, Constantine figured that the boy didn't understand the last colloquial. So, he put it in terms he'd understand. "Kids ruin my fun." He stated simply.

The kid looked flustered now, his blush rising on his pale skin- covering his cheeks and rising in blotches along his neck and the tips of his ears. Likely from rage. The kid sufficiently looked like a tea kettle waiting to blow steam. "Well I'm sorry my ruined death managed to ruin your fun!" He hissed. Even going as far to stomp his foot like a hissy toddler. "But I'm not standing around- twiddling my thumbs as some bastard runs around without my consultation!"

Fine, if the kid was going to swear, so would he. Constantine filed it away for later and shook his head slightly. "Your consultation?" He asked the kid with no small amount of amusement. "You came to me kid- so we work by my rules."

"Your rules are idiotic!" The boy snarled. "I can handle myself!"

Constantine snorted. "Yes, because resorting to breaking and entering and then assault sounds so much like being able to handle yourself, mate."

The kid gave an incoherent yell, and suddenly his coffee table erupted into an explosion of sparks and splinters. Now Constantine feels less silly about pushing his coffee table out to use it as a footrest earlier- because if the table had been closer, it would have done some damage.

He blinked, Henry in front of him heaving in exertion from his magical tantrum.

The kid had just done a spell without speaking. Well, technically there was some screaming. However, he's pretty sure whatever garbled words that came from the kid's throat did not count as an invocation.

One question plagued his mind. 'How?'

When Henry was calm, the kid jutted his little chin up at Constantine. "You're taking me with you."

Constantine couldn't find it in him to argue.

A/N: Hey everyone! I hope you are enjoying this piece! This was a more self-indulgent fic than anything. I have about three chapters in advance written up and am planning for this to be a weekly posting- if I can stay ahead of the chapters... anyways. This was going posted this Friday, but I couldn't wait- so I decided to post it today instead. I'm not how many chapters this is going to be- but I'm hoping I'll be able to finish. I don't really have a good track record with multi-chapter stories, yet that's all I'm able to write it seems.

Anyways, leave a comment if you liked or didn't like this chapter! I enjoy any and all forms of criticism, and if you see any mistakes- let me know. I don't really have anyone willing to beta so it's mostly just me! I hope you are enjoying this as much as I am writing this, see you next week.