Yeah, that's a good point about the old boats.  A hex that took out all the lights and cars in Chicago but boats are okay is kinda too convenient for the plot.

Probably most genus loci are not all that self aware.  They don't think in language as we know it.  Before Harry mentions it, it doesn't occur to the genus loci that there is a distinction between itself and the prison.

Harry is doing for Alfred what he did for Bob and personifying him (likely giving out a sliver of free will in the process; Uriel was right about mortals throwing Names around).

"Merciful God,"he said.  "Intellectus."
I felt my eyebrows go up.  "You're kidding."
Molly muttered a couple of candles to light so that we could see each other clearlyl
"Intell-whatsis?" she asked me.

"Intellectus," I said.  "Um.  It's a mode of existence for a very few rare and powerful
supernatural beings--angels have it.  I'm willing to bet old Mother Winter and Mother Summer have it. For beings with intellectus, all reality exists in one piece, one place, one moment, and they can look at the whole thing.  They don't seek or aquire knowledge.  They just know things.  They see the entire picture."

I don't think your snarky.  Nor is my word the final one.  But I argue hard, although it doesn't always serve me well.

I don't write the books, I just read them and the text says bargained. How your imagination interprets them is up to you.

His arm quivered for a second, and then he lowered his eyelids until they were almost closed. A moment later he very, very slowly relaxed his arm, allowing me to breathe again. My throat burned, but air came in, and I wheezed for a second or two while he stepped back from me.

I glared up at him and debated slamming him through one of those Corinthian columns by way of objecting to being manhandled. But I decided that I didn’t want to piss him off.

Nicodemus’s lips moved, but an entirely different voice issued from them—something musical, lyrical, and androgynous. “At least it has some survival instinct.”

The ice age glacier gave Alfred his limp, not the Gatekeeper.  You might be thinking of that WoJ.  The genus loci likely existed before the prison was constructed, so it's not clear that OG Merlin went that far back in time.

Ozarks are in southern part of Missouri and Northern part of Arkansas. They do extend into MO, OK, AR, and a small piece of Kansas.

McCoy lives and has lived on a farm in Hog Hollow, Missouri, for at least a couple of centuries.[3] He keeps horses[6] and possibly sheep.[7]