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Had there been opportunity to ask them, locals would have said the old ruin back in the woods was considered haunted.

But a fugitive seldom has time to appreciate colorful local folklore. This one saw only a place to hide, to let pursuit pass by, to hopefully get a night's worth of sleep before he must find some place else to run to. With any luck, and he had used up plenty of that but he dared hope he had just a little bit left, the cops would assume he was making for the towns upriver--the ones where he could have been warned, but was not--and race there to try and head him off.

It was bitterly ironic how Francis had spent long and prosperous years stealing, from poor folk, for rich folk. He'd likely have been rich folk himself, in the near future, if not for the fateful discovery that when you made the very slight adjustment of stealing from rich folk as well, the law becomes concerned with alarming suddenness. Suddenly you were no longer an investment broker. Now they called it theft.

The hotel would have been a grand place in its heyday. A stately lawn, now all thistles and brush, encircled by a grove of live oaks. Three stories of wrought iron verandas, now shapeless masses of rust and dead honeysuckle. A tower with a cupola, perhaps a good place to keep watch for the cops, and any squirrel ought to be able to find a way to climb it. Two great slabs of a grand double door, a shadow of lesser wethering the only sign of where a monogram of a capital K and P with a crown above had once been affixed. Now chained and padlocked, but there would be an open window somewhere. He had no need to come in the front way, like he owned the place.

Francis was comfortable with things he didn't own.

The derelict hotel resounded with that species of looming emptiness peculiar to places meant to be filled with light and celebration and the noise of crowds.

Perhaps this room, into which the collapsed french window had admitted Francis, had once been a ballroom? Or a banquet hall? The only light was from the windows where he'd entered, the hardwood boards were warped with dry rot, and the pile of collapsed debris in the corner might once have been a bandstand, but imagination didn't have to reach very far to hear, as if from a loudspeaker the split second after it had been shut off, the echo of the last note of music.

He chose doors at random till he found one unlocked.

He wandered down a back hallway, dim with high windows. A set of doors settled, jammed together on bent hinges, but after peering through the gap into the darkness beyond he presumed this must have once been the kitchens.

He went all the way to the end before trying any doors. Best to be methodical.

The room beyond was dim, and he nearly tripped over the frayed carpet as he descended a step or two. When his eyes adjusted he felt confident this had been a bar. Or a saloon. Whatever word they would have used when it was open. There was an enormous bar that covered one side of the room entirely. The brass rail at the bottom and the ponderous mirror at the back were both much corroded, but still there. There were tattered curtains, too sun-faded for their original color to be guessed more accurately than some shade of red.

In the corner sat the hollow shell of an upright piano. Most of the keys were missing, but Francis couldn't resist the impulse to press one of them. No result, of course, and it stayed down when he lifted his finger.

Wait, had that always been there?

Francis turned suspiciously back toward the door. But... of course it must have. He bent to pick it up into the light: a cork from a champagne bottle. Uncanny how the smell of the old wine managed to linger on it, even in this musty room.

When he stood back up, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He whirled, but it was only the bar mirror. He must have seen himself, in between the blooms of tarnish trapped behind the glass. That's all. He must have just imagined the back of the bartender, and rows of well-heeled customers chatting, busily intoxicating themselves.

Another door led to a parlor? A tea room? A restaurant? The embossed ceiling was peeling and collapsing in sections, and there was moss on the windowsills straining to catch the last taste of setting sun, but laid on one of the tables, somehow clear of debris, was a linen napkin. Monogrammed with the same crowned K and P as the front door. The fork and spoon laid on it were clean.

As he passed the kitchen again, he stopped and looked inside. No, still a barren shambles. Yet he could've sworn for a second he'd smelled onions being sauteed in wine and butter.

The fur on the back of Francis's neck tingled as he slunk through a wider hallway. He'd found a playing card, the nine of diamonds, a tinsel streamer, and what he suspected was an old fashioned casino chip. And more than once now he'd heard a voice from another room. The polite precision of a porter. The brassy laugh of a proud and experienced grande dame, the tittering of a flock of young belles in response. The frustrated drawl of a tired businessman. He no longer needed any locals' tales to tell him this place was haunted.

Lastly, for he had explored the whole floor backwards, was what must have been the entrance. Was this what you called a foyer? Or an atrium? Francis was no architect, he was unsure of the difference.

Whatever it was, this is where people would have waited to check in, where travelers would have parted or been reunited. The staircase, Francis mused, was plainly meant to make the moment of first eye contact, between one at the bottom and one descending from the top, as dramatic as possible.

Which was proved correct.

"Well," said the weasel, framed perfectly at the top of the grand staircase, in the impeccable evening dress and tasteful domino mask, "It's been a long time indeed since we've had a guest."

"Will you be staying with us more than one night?" The weasel had opened a large guestbook. In between the time he had picked it up and when he spread it open on the front desk, the pages had gone from dusty and falling apart, to crisply pristine.

"I, uh," the next name above the line where Francis signed his was dated 1945, "I don't yet know. It will depend on... when I have an opportunity to leave."

"Of course." The stairs had seemed untrustworthy to Francis, but the weasel had descended them with confidence and grace. The room had come alive around him, as if the past were a flickering light and he were the candle, though even now decay hovered in the distant corners of the foyer. He shut the book and rang a desk bell that certainly hadn't been there before.

An empty bellhop's uniform, with a mask suspended above it where the face ought to have been, bowed. Francis had no idea where it had come from.

"Your bag will be taken up to your room for you." said the weasel.

Francis clutched the backpack tighter. The stolen two point four million in bonds inside felt like an electric charge.

"Or..." the weasel raised a single eyebrow enough to emerge from behind his mask, "you may place it in one of our safes? I take valuable property very seriously, you know."

"It's... kinda a lot" Francis admitted warily.

"Very seriously," the weasel beckoned him over to an office, unlocked one of several old-fashioned safes. Once his backpack was inside, Francis found himself holding a key, a claim slip on which 'twenty-four-hundred thousands in stolen bonds' had been elegantly handwritten, and a baffled unease at how easily he'd let that happen.

"You can, you know," the weasel said smoothly, "present your ticket for an equivalent line of credit up at the gaming rooms."

Francis's ear perked. "There are gaming rooms?"

"There are indeed," the weasel chuckled. "If you're interested I'd be more than happy to make you my personal guest there, for the evening." By the time Francis realized the weasel had punctuated that with a gentle caress under his chin, it was already too late to startle back.

"Uh, sure, but, what do I call you?" the squirrel gulped.

"I am known, in my capacity here," the weasel beckoned him up the grand stairway, now in perfect repair, "as the Master of the House."

"So," the Master of the House shuffled a deck of cards with a very professional flourish, "what games do you favor?"

Francis would have liked to answer "slot machines," or maybe "pachinko" but there were none to be found in this room. Even roulette, it seemed, was a little too technologically advanced.

The gaming rooms had proved to be a set of three parlors, set behind one of the second floor verandas. The lights here were low, the tables covered in soft green felt, and Francis did his best to avoid looking at the other players. Clustered around the other tables were parties of impossibly ahistorical guests, very slightly translucent: a possum in a bustle and pediment of gibson girl hair glared daggers at the smug raccoon in the slate-blue cavalry uniform across the table. A stag in a waistcoat and watch-chain puffed pensively at his pipe opposite a robin in tight hose and a powdered wig. A goldfinch in a sleek flapper dress and fringe shawl was pretending not to know how to play, much to the amusement of the fox in the grey tuxedo, with whom she was sharing a cigarette holder as he tried to explain the rules.

So Francis looked at the walls instead. Rather than french windows, here everything was stained glass. Wouldn't do to have anyone looking over anyone's shoulder from the outside, he supposed.

"Taraux Gros? Strohmandeln? Perdition?" The Master of the House was saying when Francis's attention snapped back suddenly, "Blind Chego? Stable Fire?"

"I'm afraid I don't know any of those"

"Progresiva, perhaps? Despoinai? There's always Fourth Man Left Outside, but we'd need more players, and a single round can take all night..."

"Is there a version of Poker?" Francis said hopefully.

"Well," the weasel was already dealing, "that's a relatively recent one, but I daresay we can make it work. Would you do me the honor of opening the betting?"

"Uh," well, he did have more than two million downstairs. Francis supposed he could afford to be a little extravagant. "I'll start at a hundred."

"A hundredfold it is, then!" The Master jauntily fanned out his cards to inspect them like they were an amusing booklet of dirty jokes.

Francis felt his face fall. What the hell was he holding? Five of swords? Twelve of thorns? Ace of Wings? What was he supposed to do with any of this?

"I shall take two cards," the masked weasel said, "and match your wager."

"Uh... can I take three cards?" Francis ventured.

"Of course. Whyever not?"

The squirrel found himself looking at another Ace, of Clubs this time. That one was familiar at least. Where were the rest of the real cards hiding? Still, two Aces wasn't nothing. "I'll wager another hundred?"

"And I shall match you again." The weasel grinned at him.

"Uh, I've got two aces." Francis slapped down his cards after a moment of being unsure if that was what the Master was waiting for him to do.

"Why, luck is with you my friend," the weasel laughed. "I was sure I would draw enough for a Royal Family, but alas, my Queen and King were Knightless, I have only a pair of sevens! That makes, let me see, twenty thousand to you this round!"

"Twenty- what?!" Francis squeaked and tried not to drop his cards, "But... I thought I only bet two hundred!"

"And as the challenged, I was forced to match each hundred a hundredfold." The weasel retrieved the deck and shuffled it again. "It would seem you have a talent for this game, my friend. Do not become over-confident, you are challenged this time!"

As Francis dealt the next hand, the Master turned and raised two fingers. Instantly an empty masked waiter's uniform was at his side, with a bottle of champagne in a chilling bucket and a single goblet of black glass. "I do hope you'll join me," he poured a generous measure, took a drink himself, then passed the chalice across the table.

"Just the one glass?" the squirrel hesitated.

"An eccentricity, perhaps," the weasel's eyes danced through the holes of his mask, "but I feel it makes for a much more amicable evening. What better way to share a drink with... well, a new guest?"

Francis found himself taking a gulp before he was sure he'd decided to. And it was odd, but undeniable, it tasted not just of champagne--and exceptional champagne--but also something exotic, wild, mischievous, old-fashioned and even dangerous. To know his inscrutable lips had touched it too, the same wine had washed over his tongue, his breath had mixed with the bubbles-

"I said," the Master of the House cleared his throat, "I wager two hundred?"

Francis realized he'd forgotten to look at his cards. "Uh," he scowled at the incomprehensible mess of fruits, hearts, swords, and rings, "I think I have to fold?"

"Oh, truly?" The weasel chuckled, "what a pity. I do hope you'll learn to be more adventurous, or else this will be a dull evening indeed. Was your journey long? Could it be you're hungry?" Without waiting for his answer the Master summoned another phantom server, who brought a silver tray of charcuterie, caviar, and tiny pheasant sandwiches from a dumbwaiter by the door. Whatever else this place was, it had incredible food.

"I'll say..." Francis liked the look of this hand a lot better. The Page of Spades, The Page of Rings, the Page of Wands. Three of a kind had to be good, right? "I'll say a thousand!"

"That's the spirit! I'll match you, and I'll raise you-" Francis's heart dropped for a moment, "A kiss."

"A what?"

"Surely you must know what a kiss is, my friend!" The weasel laughed and refilled their shared glass. "The world cannot have changed that much since last I walked abroad in it!"

"I was only..." the squirrel blushed, "well, your bet surprised me, is all! Two cards!"

The Master passed them over. Neither was an additional Page. "No cards for me."

"Three of a kind!" Francis thought of winning a thousandfold thousand, plus a kiss he supposed, and hoped he understood how this betting math worked.

"Five of a kind, I'm afraid," the Master of the House grinned and laid down the Seven of Diamonds, Hearts, Stars, Lights, and Cups. "They say the house always wins eventually, you know."

Francis's jaw dropped. Which made it trivially easy for the weasel to lean across the table, raise the cup to his lips, and then collect the kiss he'd won while the squirrel's mouth was still alive with the taste of champagne. A corner of his mind, lost amidst the kiss, treacherously suggested this might have been worth losing the hand.

"I would not blame you," the Master of the House adjusted his cuffs, "if you wished to retire at this point. You've lost perhaps half of what you walked in with, and there is no shame in leaving well enough alone."

It had been nearly six years ago, Francis recalled, when his mentor at the brokerage, an arrogant bastard of an orca, had taught him to play. "Kid," he'd said around a foul-smelling cigar, "first rule of poker is you haven't lost anything till you walk away. Stick to your guns till you win it all back and then some, no matter what!" Of course, Francis had never been able to win against him. Nor had he ever been able to confess the real reason he was willing to play, and lose. But he'd heard his mentor make enough malicious jokes about 'tail-raisers' and 'sausage-suckers' to know he could never let the brokerage find him out. Nor was he sure, now he had committed it, that he should have let the man talk him into the most recent piece of complex financial fraud that had set him on the run in the first place. But still... things weren't the first rule of anything for no reason.

"I'll stay," Francis said, trying for the same firmness his former mentor would have said it with. "Nobody's luck runs out forever."

"Admirable!" grinned the weasel, and passed the deck to him to deal.

Within another hour, Francis had lost everything.

He licked his lips. "Is this the part," he tried to talk over the screams in his head, about how he'd lost all the money, what had he been thinking, now he was going to go to jail for nothing, "where you ask me to bet my soul?"

The Master of the House threw back his head and laughed. "What, and leave us without amusement the rest of the evening?" He rose to his feet, "but first I have some other duties to attend to. If you would do me the honor of being my partner in another capacity? It is time I opened this evening's dancing!" He held out an inviting arm. "We can discuss proposals for the next round there."

"You could always," the weasel whispered, once Francis was securely in his arms and the music had begun, "wager your sins."

He'd followed the Master to the other end of the gaming rooms, onto a sort of mezzanine over the room he'd entered. There had been a moment of heart-stopping doubt, when he first set foot through the door, because this entire structure no longer existed in, well, the present? The real world? So if all this was a hallucination he was about to fall an entire story... but it had bourne his weight as solidly as any other floor.

A small crowd, in more historically confused finery, milled about below on a polished parquet dancefloor. Rabbits in hoopskirts and blue jays in tailcoats, bobcats in evening gowns and coyotes in cravats, toads in empire waists and rats in three-piece suits, chattering brightly as the band tuned up. They had looked up and applauded politely as the Master of the House and his partner for the evening descended the stairs.

Francis had felt more than a few uncomfortably knowing looks as the old-fashioned dance music began.

"How do you mean, I can bet my sins?" Francis asked once he was sure enough of the dance steps to spare some concentration from them.

"Why, it's simple enough, my friend," the Master of the House's smile, like his hand on the squirrel's shoulder and his arm around his waist, was unsettlingly comfortable. "You wager, say, 'the time I pulled my sister's pigtails, when she wouldn't share her ice cream,' and that'll buy you in for another hand."

"I'm not sure," Francis found himself clinging against the weasel's chest as a whirl went a little faster than he'd expected, "I understand."

"Why, it's just like wagering a sock or a glove," the Master drew close enough to whisper suggestively until Francis felt warm breath through his cheek fur. "Surely you've played strip poker before?"

Thankfully the band ended there and the couples on the floor all separated to applaud, so Francis had a chance to turn away and get himself under control. It was important in gambling, he was pretty sure, not to give away tells. And what the weasel would have been able to feel if their waists had remained pressed close together would certainly have been a tell.

"In all honesty," the weasel helped himself to another bottle of champagne, another single glass, "what have your sins ever gotten you? The regrettable incident involving those bonds, and the subsequent disagreement with the constabulary, not to mention all the lies you've been forced to live to conceal your," he bent his face close to Francis, raised the glass between them, somehow managed to tip it to the side to let them both drink at the same time, cheek against cheek, whiskers crossing in the spray of bubbles, "romantic appetites."

Francis almost blushed hard enough to forget to wonder how the Master of the House already knew what his sins had been.

"Do not most," the Master took the stairs back toward the gaming rooms half turned back to continue persuading him, "spend their whole lives trying to be rid of their sins? Is that not what the churches of the preachers promise?"

Which was persuasive enough, after all, that by the time Francis reclaimed his seat at the table he'd made up his mind to say "I'll wager the year spent talking college freshmen into taking student loans they didn't need."

"We'll account that as greed, then," the Master dealt him his cards, with which he proved able to do nothing. Which was alright, he expected to lose a hand or two until he figured out how this sin-betting thing worked and found a way to exploit it. Just had to keep a cool head and keep betting exploitative and dishonest bits of his former career. There were certainly plenty. Never mind the faint twinge he felt, when the weasel narrowed his eyes, of some sickeningly runaway but familiar appetite, like he'd gotten when his old mentor had started talking about plans that ended up putting two million and then some in a backpack in a safe downstairs.

"I waited to finish paperwork so clients would get late fees," was the next thing Francis lost. Never mind, though. Just keep his eyes on how many hundredfolds the Master of the House was going to have to apply to his money once he won it back! As long as he had sins to bet, he'd win eventually, it was just statistics!

"I sold shares in an overseas company that didn't exist!" Oh to hell with strategy, he just needed to keep taking shots till he got the money

"I helped my boss set up a full-on ponzi scheme!" He needed the money back, dammit!

"And then instead of handing over his share, I kept it all and ran!" He was going to be obscenely wealthy, once he finally won a hand!

"I..." shit, was he somehow running low? "I never put anything into the envelope when everyone's supposed to contribute for the receptionist's birthday." He'd be the richest person in history!

"A bit on the small side," the weasel remarked. "I haven't cleaned out all your greed already, have I?"

Francis couldn't bring himself to think about answering, he just wanted to finish the hand in the hopes he'd finally win something. He also felt profoundly strange, some kind of emotional vertigo, as if the determination he was feeling didn't belong to him and was being done to him from outside. But... this was the best looking hand he'd had in a while, if he could press his luck on it. "I raise, uh, the fact I only let my boss talk me into breaking the law cause I would get hot under the collar thinking about him, even if I couldn't let anyone know."

"Ah, untruthfulness, and lust too, that's worth something!"

Francis still lost the hand, raised stakes or no. Then got distracted from dealing the next one, watching the Master of the House pour another glass of champagne, take a long throat-rolling gulp, and deliberately offer the glass so the squirrel's lips would touch the same spot on the rim as his. As Francis drank, he managed to forget all about the game, trying to win, trying to get back his money. Wanting more than a hint of the taste of the weasel was all he could think about.

So lured by the greed he'd lost, distracted by the lust he'd lost, he fell even further behind.

Once Francis inevitably bet, and lost, all his sins, he no longer saw any reason to object to the Master beckoning him up to his private suite. In this more comfortable setting, he tried the strategy of betting his clothing, piece by piece, with things such as his desire or his appetite thrown in at times that might catch the Master of the House off guard and win back his losses. Curiously, the failure of this strategy dismayed him not at all. Francis found it necessary to remind himself more than once that he was supposed to be trying to win.

Once the last of his undergarments was lost, he bet his soul after all, because why not? If doing so was a sin, why, he no longer had any of those, so what was the concern?

"Well," and it took no more than laying down two fives and three knights to the squirrel's pair of elevens for the weasel to own his soul, "I think this calls for a moment of relaxation?"

Which was how Francis found himself in the luxurious bath in the Master's suite. The weasel was bathing him, though it would be more accurate to say he was embracing him, gently, closely, from behind, running fingers through his fur, slowly, until every inch of his body had been thoroughly explored.

He'd never in his life felt so hungered for. So desired.

He dimly recalled, somewhere between his socks and his suspenders, betting and losing his heart. Which explained a few things, Francis thought, as he turned his head to accept another deep kiss from his Master.

"At what point," the squirrel breathed into the scented steam, "do I bet my body?"

"The only thing you have left to wager," the weasel's whispered words were suddenly somber and serious, "is your ability to leave."

A cold, vertiginous clarity descended as Francis stepped out of the bath, dried himself, followed the Master of the House back to the bedroom. The weasel slipped on a dressing gown. But Francis found he felt no need to wear anything but his fur.

His ability to leave, huh?

To be back out in the world, to run, to escape. Out in the cold, grey, miserable world, where he had nothing to expect, save either escaping to but more escaping, forever, until he'd used up all the stolen money and fatigue ended his life, or spending the rest of that life in yet another prison. A prison where there was no music, no dances, no games. No soft fur against his. No burning eyes desiring him. No kisses.

The Master was pouring a single glass of champagne again, for both of them. Wasn't a prison amply supplied with the taste of champagne on a handsome weasel's lips better than one without?

"And where is it," the Master of the house had the champagne glass in one hand, the deck in the other, "you'd have us play the last hand of the night?"

Francis nudged him toward the bed.

And so he was curled up, his head on the weasel's slender, soft belly, the dressing gown wrapped loosely about them both, by the time he looked at his cards.

Page of Cups, Knave of Diamonds, Knight of Hearts, Queen of Graves, King of Pentacles.

It wasn't exactly a royal flush, but some sliver of luck that was yet his told him it wasn't far off from one.

"You have understood the wager we have made?" Was there a trace of forlorn sorrow in the weasel's seductive whisper? "A hundredfold the fortune you brought to this place, against your ability to leave."

Francis nodded.

"Then what is your choice?"

With a deep sigh, the squirrel slid his cards together and set them aside. "I have to fold."

For the first time, the Master of the House looked as if something unexpected had happened.

"What?" Francis laughed "You told me the house always wins, in the end."

"I... suppose I did. Well," an unremarkable assortment of Deuces and Threes fell unheeded from the weasel's hand, "then it is time I collected my winnings? But truly, you are atrocious at this game, my friend."

"I'll have," Francis whispered as he pressed himself into the Master's arms, "Plenty of time to learn."

There was not much discussion of card games, however, nor indeed discussion of any sort, for the rest of the night.

The old hotel was eventually demolished, of course.

Whatever plans there had been for a replacement never materialized, and the trees slowly reclaimed the land which, so far as they could tell, nobody else wanted.

The case of Francis Envoy was never solved. Neither he nor the money he stole was ever seen again. The matter never became one of those famous obsession-spawning mysteries: Francis's picture was never featured on a true crime documentary, no podcast theorized his disappearance was part of a government conspiracy, nor was he ever connected to an abandoned and demolished hotel. Why should he be? Obviously he was just an embezzler who got lucky enough to get away with the money, and there was no more to the story. People preferred more interesting mysteries: ones with body counts, or paranormal phenomena, or celebrity scandals.

All the while, local folktales continued to say the old ruins in the woods were haunted.

Though perhaps now those local folktales spoke with more specificity. Some would say if you looked from the right spot--there was no consensus which spot that was--on a moonless, cloudless night, then you might still see the old demolished hotel, as it must have looked in its glory days: trim and glamorous, windows ablaze with stained glass light, echoing with old fashioned dance music and scintillating laughter.

Some even say you might see two figures on the highest balcony: impeccable evening coats, ties undone, arms around one another, sharing a bottle of champagne from a single glass.

But all the tales agree that if you try to approach, if you come to the place itself, there is nothing there to find but thistles and live oak saplings growing through the cracks of the ruined foundation.