"...Okay!"

Harry meets up with an exceptionally tiny woman (though possibly not up to Veron's standards for "exceptionally tiny", given that she is neither a halfling nor a dwarf) in a dark blue uniform. "Sergeant Murphy!" he says brightly.

"Dresden," she replies tiredly. "You wouldn't happen to know of any supernatural nasties with a particular grudge against overpriced office buildings, would you? Because 'gas explosion' is a classic but it's not actually true, and 'very weird terrorists' is possible but worrying."

"The Overpriced Office Building Dragon wouldn't be worrying?"

"It would," Murphy explains. "It also wouldn't be my problem."

"Well, I don't have an immediate diagnosis," Harry says. "But if you've got any clues, I'd be happy to take a look at them. And, uh, we have a visitor. He's possibly invisible, but friendly and very good with a sword."

"I like one of those three adjectives. But I'll try to trust your judgment. Come on. Both of you, I guess."

Veron would say something polite to Sergeant Murphy, but he's being all stealthy. It would be unprofessional to say something while he's being stealthy. Also people tend to freak out when strange invisible shadow men say hi from out of nowhere.

He ghosts around the crime scene to where no one's looking. He keeps half an eye on Harry in case he needs something, but otherwise he can investigate the place. Who knows, maybe his life experience will help him figure out what happened here. No reason not to look.

There's a strong smell of brimstone as they pick their way into a rubble-strewn alley. "That's not a great sign," Harry notes.

Murphy nods grimly. "Wait 'til you see the bad news."

They come to it soon enough: a five-pointed star, its points resting over the rim of a circle, all drawn in not-quite-fresh blood. Harry sucks in a breath, then coughs at the sulfur.

Murphy snickers despite herself.

(To Veron's trained eye, the alley mostly looks like... well, a wreck. Maybe there's something mystically significant in the patterns of the rubble, but it's not a spike trap, so his life experience is probably going to be of limited use.)

Yep. This sure is not a spike trap, all right.

Hmm. He retrieves his gem of True Seeing and peers through it. Any illusions or whatnot floating around?

Nope!

Meanwhile, Harry is peering at a specific section of the general destruction. "Murph, look at this concrete. Does this look normal?"

"Nothing looks normal here, Harry," Murphy says. She peers at it regardless. "But no. It's... melted?"

"In a semicircle," Harry confirms. "Which was probably a full circle, when this was a full wall. And judging by the angle, I think it lines up..." He traces an invisible line back to the pentagram's circle. "Like so. And there's a second hole in the back wall, there. Judging by the angle, there's going to be four more points like this, a pentagram of pentacles. This wasn't a weapon. This was a... a sorcerous tech demo."

Murphy swears under her breath. "What kind of demo does that?"

"...can't be sure," Harry admits. "A pentagram is a very versatile symbol. But... mostly passive, weirdly enough. You use a pentagram for wards, like the kind when you're summoning something." He shivers, probably not from the cold. "I don't want to see anything that needs some kind of building-demolishing death laser pentagram to summon it."

"How do you know that they didn't already summon it?" Murphy asks.

"Only one building exploded," he says flatly.

Well that's charming. He's charmed. He's also hardly an expert on summoning, so uh. Good job, Harry. He puts away his gem.

Is it obvious what kind of destructive force is at work, here?

From the spot Harry was pointing at, heat. Completely self-contained, capable of melting through metal and stone without even warming its surroundings enough to melt the still-falling snow a foot away. Clearly magical in nature.

"So how's a magic drill bit take down an office building?"

"There was still an actual explosion," Harry clarifies absently. "Probably just TNT. But this thing is why the rest of the street is untouched. I think... I'm just spitballing here, but I think the explosion itself might have been a test of this thing's containment power. Why this building, that's a question."

Murphy snorts. "Guess who owns it. His name starts with a 'criminal scum' and rhymes with 'repeatedly pissed off the Knights of the Blackened Denarius.'"

"Fucking Marcone," Harry groans.

"Bingo."

"I hate that guy."

"I'm aware."

So, he'll need fire resistance. ... A lot of it. Yeah, okay genius, good conclusion. Very useful.

He drifts around the crime scene, then decides he's too unfamiliar with the world to be much use here. Besides, Harry's doing great. Veron finds a comfortable place to perch and listen to the professionals.

"So. Facts of the case," Murphy prompts.

"Probable demo of some kind of containment system, seeing how much power it can hold back," Harry starts.

"Answer: a lot."

"Building ownership and smell of Hellfire implies perpetrators are the Denarians, AKA Nickelheads."

"AKA by you, yes."

"Unknowns include: why now? Why here, in the one city with a full-time wizard detective who can figure out what they're doing?"

"Most importantly," Murphy concludes, "what's coming?"

There's a pause.

"I love doing the CSI back-and-forth thing," Harry says with some glee.

"It is very fun," Murphy agrees. "But I need to get going. Are you and your imaginary friend going to be okay without police backup?"

Harry waves her on. "Before you go, I need a donut."

Murphy's eyes narrow. "That's a stereotype."

"But you have a box in the car."

"But I have a box in the car," Murphy admits. "You get jelly for stereotyping, regardless." She walks over to her vehicle and hands Harry a hand-sized pastry of some kind, then hugs him and drives away.

Harry exits the crime scene at a stroll, waving to various other law enforcement officers on his way out, then walking to a nearby secluded alleyway. "You can come out now," he says.

He comes out now. He doesn't even slowly fade into view, he just... Leans off of a wall, straightens up, and relaxes, and then he is visible. Like he'd found the perfect wall leaning spot that hid him.

"You're pretty good at that," he says. "I couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. My only conclusion was that I should invest in fire resistance potions."

Harry starts a bit when Veron comes into perspective.

"You're not wrong," he says once he unruffles himself. "I'm going to be summoning an associate of mine to tell me if the minor spirits of the area noticed anything odd. Beyond, you know, the giant explosion. Any pressing questions before we get into it?"

"Nah. Unless you need me to be sneaky again?"

"Nah, Toot-Toot's seen weirder."

Holding out the donut, Harry murmurs a few syllables which Veron can't quite hear. Shortly, a sphere of blue light zips into the alleyway and pulls up short in front of Harry, revealing itself to be, in truth, a tiny glowing humanoid figure, male, with a shock of lilac fluff on his head and a suit of armor crafted from various trash. At his hip rests a spear fashioned from an iron nail wrapped in a clear film, with a strange boxy hilt with no visible blade strapped on the other side.  

"M'lord!" the pixie says stridently, with a genuine but questionable attempt at a salute. "You have summoned me!" He notices the pastry. "And you have a donut!!"

"Yep," Harry says, incompletely suppressing a grin. "I need to know who blew up this building, and why. Do the Little Folk have any information? I'll give you the donut if you investigate."

The pixie salutes again, this time striking his helmet so hard as to ring the aluminum like a bell. "Sir!!! Yes sir!!!!"

He darts off in a flash. Harry finally lets out a very small giggle. 

Veron manages to keep a perfect poker face all throughout this transaction, then indulges in a smile when the pixie darts off. He is very good at avoiding being rude; comes from practice.

"Well, that was adorable."

"He is, isn't he? He also, um, killed a demigoddess for me with that box cutter once, so I try to stay respectful. Thanks on that, by the way."

"Yep. He's helping you out, figure the least I can do is not coo over him. A demigoddess? ... That armor must be better than it looks."

"She was extremely surprised."

"Ah, I know that game. All right. I'm glad he was there to help."

"As am I! Because I'm not dead, and neither is the entire human race."

"Was this the, uh—daughter of whatshername, or is this a different crisis?"

"No, you're on the money. Something... went wrong with her. Thousands of years embodying growth and fertility and general goody-gumdrops goodness, then one day she just. Snapped. Said she couldn't stand the eternal conflict between Summer and Winter and tried to end it all with an ice age."

Wince. "Ah. I'm sorry. ... Is your associate going to be in any danger from the fallout? Since he helped, and you know they're upset?"

"...he's never mentioned... but come to think of it, I think you and I might well be the only people who know enough about it and think he's a real person to think that way. Most people think pixies are one step up from animal intelligence, think of it as me killing her with a pixie-shaped bullet." He pauses. "That's depressingly convenient."

"A bit, yeah. He should probably be warned anyway, though, just to be safe. I might even have a thing in my endless bag of tricks that could help him out? Or are you sure enough that he's out of the line of fire that I shouldn't?"

"Decently sure - it has been years - but, hell, I'm not going to turn down a boost for the little guy. Wouldn't really be my place. And it is kind of worrying he's wearing armor around now, come to think of it..."