2. You Meet at an Inn

                                    

                                              
Dumbstruck, the five-woman stared at the unconscious man. Lakeisha held her brush as if in a trace, and it dripped paint on the floor, green blobs splattering on the yellow tile. Maya backed against the counter, both hands pressed over her mouth in a silent gasp. Courtney slid to a halt, knocking over another shelf of books.
                          
"You did it—you actually knocked someone out!" Courtney panted.
                          
"I did not!" Leone glared at her. She fumbled for the bat. Twice in one day—record usage. On shaking legs, she walked from behind the counter. Shandi hid behind the Captain America cutout as if the cardboard shield would protect her. Leone would've laughed—if a man hadn't dropped from the ceiling a moment ago.
                          
Bending down, Leone poked the man. He didn't move, but he wasn't bleeding, either. At least, no visible blood pooled around him. Of course, he could have internal organ damage, which she'd never be able to access. She swallowed the bile rising in her throat.
                          
"Is he...is he..." Maya gasped.
                          
"I-I don't think so, but let me check," Leone said.
                          
Leone steeled herself and squatted down, tilting his face towards her. He'd bloodied it during the fall, but nothing looked broken. Leone pressed her fingers against the unconscious man's wrist. She frowned, too excited herself to ascertain anything but her own jumpy pulse. She hesitated, not wanting to reach a hand up and touch his neck.
                          
"Give me a sec," Leone muttered, wiping her sweaty palm on her jeans.
                          
"How did he get here?" Lakeisha asked. "I heard no one come through the door, and it's like he fell on top of the racks—"
                          
They all gazed up, studying the ceiling. The tiles appeared intact, the drop ceiling showing no signs that a body had crashed through it. Leone took several breaths to steady herself. She couldn't remember where the air ducts were placed, but he'd been falling with speed—a lot further than the distance from drop ceiling to the shelves below.
                          
Leone worked up her nerve and used the baseball bat to tilt his head to the side. He'd cut his cheek, and blood trickled from his nose and mouth. He didn't wake, and she moved a hand towards his throat like he'd strike her at any moment. She kept imagining his eyes popping open like a vampire waking from the grave. She pressed her fingers to his carotid artery, letting out a sigh of relief when she felt his pulse beating under his clammy, coppery skin.
                          
"He's alive," she murmured.
                          
"We need to call 911," Lakeisha said.
                          
Leone held up a hand, frowning at the man. The clothes, the strange fall, the staff--all of it unexplainable--unless she used the M word. She glanced back up at the ceiling again. She moaned.
                          
"Oh hell."
                          
"Didn't you hear me? We need to take him to a hospital!" Lakeisha gestured at the door, splattering paint across the room.
                          
Leone pointed to the ceiling. "He fell from the freaking ceiling. Come here, get a look at him."
                          
"That doesn't mean we shouldn't—"
                          
"The ceiling? Really?" Maya squeaked.
                          
"Yeah, apparently cosplaying Gandalf," Courtney said. Leone gave her a long, too knowing stare. Leave it to Courtney to echo her thoughts. As the shock of an unconscious human in her shop faded, Leone took in his clothes. He wore robes the same, dull coppery color as his skin, and everything—from his staff to his clothes—said 'bad wizard cosplay'.
                          
"There's nothing upstairs," Leone said, squatting down beside the man. "He fell from...from somewhere else—like another dimension."
                          
Lakeisha rolled her eyes. "Come on, working in a comic shop's screwing with your mind. He's some dude that was playing a prank on you and had a hard, deserving drop through the vent. That still doesn't mean he didn't get hurt, though."