Genial feels very pleased with himself and his ability to assist the forces of God against Satan.

Thank you Genial.

Mordred is having an emotional crisis and a half and so he is going to be done questioning the neighbors now.

And when he gets back to the hotel, he's still visibly shaken.

When he returns to the hotel, Lev isn't in their room.

He tries ignoring his feelings for about an hour -- reads one of the books he got Lev about anthropology -- and then stops when he realizes that he hasn't absorbed a single sentence.

Christ he wishes Gale were here.

(Phone calls from LA to New York are expensive but letters don't really work when you have no idea where you're going to be in a week. He weighs whether he thinks it's worth it for all of twenty seconds before deciding that this isn't going to stop feeling impossibly difficult.)

When he calls, Gale says "hey."

"Hey. -- Sorry for the lack of warning, a lot. of things have happened."

"Mordred!" He sounds very genuinely happy. "Don't worry about it. I always like hearing from you."

Tiny smile. (Tiny smile that is more genuine than any of the other times he's smiled this week.) "I'm glad. Um -- so I told you I had a job that would involve travelling but I didn't really say anything else about it --"

Laugh. "I thought that that was because you were committing crimes again."

"-- admittedly I did wind up committing crimes again but that was not actually the intent -- also I tell you about my crimes!"

Warmth and affection. "You do but it's not that surprising if you decided not to!"

"But no, seriously," and then the entire summary of events thus far comes spilling out, including the asylum and the getting attacked and including whatever's happened to Lacie and everything Lev has told him, not in particularly chronological order until he gets to "and so we're about to break into Trammel's house to try and get Miss Ferrier out, or find out what happened to her if she can't be gotten out, which is several tiers more crime than I usually get up to, and -- someone today declared me an agent of the Lord against the Devil and offered me his mother's rosary and I didn't take it. And a lot of things have happened in the last, god has it really been less than two weeks."

"That's. A lot."

Slightly hysterical laugh. "It really is!"

"Are you -- of course you aren't okay -- are you safe?"

If Mordred were very slightly more stupid than he actually is he would name the rush of warmth I love you too. He is not in fact very slightly more stupid than he actually is. "At the moment, yes, in general I don't know anymore."

If Mordred listens closely he can almost hear the sound of Gale's fingers running over his rosary beads. He's silent for a moment, and then he says, "You're sure the Thing With A Thousand Mouths is-- physical." It is not quite a question.

His first impulse is to go clinical and talk about standards of evidence or empiricism or something that doesn't involve asking anyone to trust his eyes as much as he does. He does not do that, because it's Gale. "I'm sure."

"I know it's real but. I see things that are real."

"Yeah. I know. It's -- different from that, it killed people and chewed on them, a dozen other people have seen it too, I don't have enough evidence to convince a doctor but I've seen enough to convince me."

Sharp intake of breath. "It's not that I didn't know that there were." He doesn't finish the sentence.

"Yeah. That's, uh, a couple steps ahead of where I was, I think. -- Genial Brooker offered me his mother's rosary. I didn't take it."

"Do you want--" He doesn't finish that sentence either.

Mordred's pretty sure he knows how it was going to end anyway. "If you would pray for me I would appreciate it."

Gale asks this every so often. Mordred has always said no, before.

"Thank you. I'm scared for you."