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"HE'S YOUR SON, ISN'T HE?" Cadence confronted as he slammed the ajar door fully open and tore into Sister Imperator's office, his robe flying out behind him and his boots clacking loudly against the hard floor. "COPIA'S YOUR SON."
Sister seemed, perhaps unsurprisingly, taken aback, bristling slightly. "Mr. Valerio, this is a most unorthodox way to come and speak with me." she said in her usual stern manner. Everyone always told Cade that was just her way, but Cade was generally used to being well-liked, and something about her treatment of him always felt personal.
"Unorthodox?" he spat back, slamming both hands on her desk, one accompanied by the pile of photocopies he'd gathered as evidence, and leaning over it. Cade was a fairly short man but looking down on someone like this, with the fire he tended to carry when emotional, he could be surprisingly intimidating. "Is it orthodox that you had three Papas executed just so the Cardinal could take over?" He gestured around the room with the hand not holding the stack of papers down, as if convinced she'd snatch them up otherwise. "Is that all just par for the course in this bloody place?"
Sister's body remained poised though her eyes flashed with just a hint of anger. "Mr. Valerio, can this wait until the next clergy meeting?" she suggested calmly.
"Absolutely not." Cade replied in his most businesslike tone, though he was still seething with rage. He jabbed firmly at the table. "We're talking about this right here, right now."
Sister stared at him for a moment, then she gripped at the tabletop herself and used it to rise slowly to her feet. She walked around it and over to the door, shutting and locking it, then returned to the opposite side of her desk. "Will you sit?" she invited him, gesturing at an empty chair beside him. Cade shook his head silently. He was too riled up to treat this as some sort of passionless work conversation. "Very well then." she replied, sitting back down herself and clasping her hands together on the desk. "If you can manage to hold your temper for a few minutes, we can attempt to discuss this. But please do bear in mind that I remain in charge of your career at this organisation."
Cade scowled harder at the thinly veiled threat. "You think I give a shit if you fire me?" he asked incredulously. Maybe he would have before. But not anymore. "I don't know why I expected a Satanic ministry not to be corrupt." He felt defeated at that realisation, and did in fact pull out the chair and sit down, putting a hand to his forehead, bitterly disappointed with this whole situation.
"You question our worship?" Imperator asked with a raised eyebrow, casting a critical eye over him. He massaged his temples for a second then dropped his hand to look at her. He felt like she was twisting this into a question of faith rather than justice, and he didn't appreciate it. "Do you question Satan himself, or merely our approach?"
"Both." he responded without thinking, but then hesitated and shook his head. "Neither." he corrected. Was he the most devoted follower? No, certainly not yet. His paternal grandparents were Catholic, his maternal ones were Satanists heavily aligned with Ghost specifically. Cade himself however had been raised without religion, and as such had never had strong faith in either. But he had to admit the culture of the Ministry had drawn him in, and he was starting to fall into the belief system of it somewhat. Or at least, he had been. "I question your approach."
"How delightful." Sister replied coldly. "But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given your unpleasant outburst upon entering."
"Don't talk down to me; I'm not a child." Cade muttered darkly, pulling his chair closer to the table and mirroring her body language, clasping his hands together. "But Copia..." he said as if questioning a witness. "...he is your child, isn't he?"
Sister looked at him hard for a moment. "That is irrelevant." she replied evasively. "Cardinal Copia is a venerated member of the Ministry. He has a frankly commendable number of Employee of the Month awards."
"Not as many as Bishop Dante." Cade retorted quickly, knowing Copia was in fact second place in that respect. "Did he factor into your decision? Any kind of promotion for him?" She looked like he wasn't expecting him to remember that fact, her mouth opening slightly like she didn't have an immediate response to it. "I suppose the blood of the covenant isn't as thick as the water of the womb." he replied bitterly on his friend's behalf. He'd only heard the full version of that phrase in recent months, falling for the standard abbreviation up until then. It had been an odd comfort for him discovering it, knowing he could perhaps some day form bonds here like the one he'd had with his sister until she died. Clearly he'd been foolish.
"I know you're rather fond of the Bishop." she replied curtly. "But I think I should remind you that you too are only here by virtue of birth, Mr. Valerio." Cade didn't know if everyone here knew he was related to one of Nihil's ghouls. But Sister obviously did. She was the one his grandfather had pulled strings with.
"You didn't have to take me on." he pointed out. "In fact, I'm not sure why you even bothered when you've acted dismissively towards me since day one." He doesn't even feel like he has a job of much significance. Just a faceless member of The Clergy, another body in a black robe to her, he supposes. A role anyone could fill.
"Vigor has always been one of the more... persuasive... Ghouls." she admits in a rather fond tone of Cade's grandfather. "I must say he carries shades of the Papa himself."
"Nihil?" he checked seeing as she didn't clarify.
"Of course." she replied dismissively, her eyes scanning him with a slightly snide look. "Perhaps it's unsurprising your grandmother considered him a suitable substitute."
Cade frowned. "It was a one-night stand, I'm not sure she thought that deeply about...". He trailed off and looked Sister dead in the eyes, his lips falling away from each other softly. "That's why you don't like me?" He didn't want to believe it; that was almost fifty years ago. That seemed so petty to him, and Cadence was honestly no stranger to pettiness. "Because Nihil kissed my granny?"
"You don't know the circumstances, I was-" she began, then brought herself back. Cade was extremely shrewd however; he'd always thought it was an interesting coincidence that Copia was mere months older than his mother. With what he'd found out today, it was all falling into place.
"I do now." Cade pointed out, tapping on the paperwork on the desk in front of him. "You have no right taking it out on me that your husband cheated on you." Under different circumstances he could perhaps sympathise. But after eighteen months of agonising over why she seemed more disdainful towards him than everyone else, he wasn't really inclined to be forgiving.
"Why do you assume-" Sister began, but Cade promptly cut her off.
"There are no assumptions here, Sister. I know about the ritual you and Nihil engaged in upon first meeting. I know what that means in Ministry terms. And I know that only bastard children have a birthright to the role of Papa." he rattled off matter-of-factly, with just a touch of gloating. "I came across that particular revelation when I began asking Terzo why he and Secondo are-" He cut himself off. "-were-" he corrected in a low mutter. "-only months apart in age."
"An astute observation, Mr. Valerio." Sister commented with a slight shrug. "Yes, Nihil and I were married in the eyes of the Ministry. You'll be unsurprised to learn it all went rather downhill after what happened with that... degenerate... and her friend."
"That's my fucking granny!" Cade snapped, standing up again and unwittingly knocking over the chair and sending a few of his own papers flying. "You have no right to talk shit about her, she didn't even know!"
"You don't understand what it's like to have to... to see something like that." she protested, her voice seeming to genuinely crack at the memory. "To have to just sit back and watch the person you love with another."
"Yes. I. Do." he insisted firmly, but he felt his own voice falling away as the realisation of what he was confessing hit. "I... I mean..." he mumbled slowly. "I... I'm almost thirty for god's sake... of course I've... been through similar."
It was her turn to look at him with curiosity now. "I wasn't aware you had a partner, Cadence." she commented, surprising him by the switch to his first name to accompany the more informal tone of the discussion.
"I don't." he insisted, stubbornly but truthfully, forced to dial his anger back down a little. That didn't help the fact that a slight blush was spreading across his cheeks. "I've been living here for a year and a half now, the only people I've even got close with are..." He stopped, hesitated, then swallowed. "I don't have a partner." he reiterated firmly.
At first the suspicion remained on her face, but then there was a vague flicker of something in her eyes as she raised both brows at him. Realisation? Surprise? Amusement? Perhaps a combination of the three? "Oh..." she replied. "I see..."
He hated the way she was looking at him. Like she was figuring him out when he was right in the middle of letting her know he'd thoroughly figured her out. "Stop distracting!" he snapped somewhat hypocritically, holding himself back so he could complete his accusation, gritting his teeth hard. "The point is, you knew Copia was too "legitimate" to ever be Papa. Not while there were other options still breathing. So you had them taken care of.".
The smug look didn't quite leave her, even as she shook her head. Perhaps his implications were a little overzealous, but he knew there was some truth to them somewhere. "This decision wasn't made by myself alone, Mr. Valerio." she insisted. "And need I remind you, Copia is not Papa yet. He is going to be given very sufficient time to prove himself." Cade exhaled softly, crossing his arms and shaking his head. "I must admit I'm surprised, though." She tilted her head to the side in what looked like vague sympathy. "Shouldn't you be going and talking to..." She paused like she was going to say his name, but didn't. "...your friend? Taking advantage of the fact your... opposition is out of the way?"
If you'd asked Cade, when he walked in here, if he could have been any more angry, he would have doubted it. But every single thing she said proceeded to make him more enraged. "Terzo was my friend too." he insisted, not seeing the point of playing coy about who she meant by this stage. They both knew. "I liked them all by the end." He hadn't had as much chance to get to know Primo or Secondo, but they certainly weren't unpleasant to him. "But even if they weren't, I could never devalue human life like you apparently do.". He paused on her statement about this decision having more than one determiner. "Or like you all do, perhaps."
"You've been here long enough to have at least a rudimentary understanding of we operate, Mr. Valerio." she reminded him calmly. "Everything is done with greater goals in mind."
"Greater goals? Greater fucking goals?" He stepped back, shaking his head and turning away from her to let out an angry sigh. This place was insane. He didn't belong here. He didn't belong here at all, and he may as well make the move before she did. "You know what, I asked why you even took me on, but I never really told you why I accepted." he pointed out, recalling his reasons clear as day. "Do you even know why my mum asked her dad to get me a job here?
"Vigor himself didn't reveal that." Sister confirmed. "But I've heard talk you were having some trouble coping with the death of your sister."
"My identical twin sister." he clarified. He wasn't sure what it was like to have any other kind of sibling, but he felt the distinction was relevant. She raised a brow at him. "I'm trans." he reminded her before she could protest about that being any kind of anomaly. He never really took issue with being open about it, especially not here, where people accepted it far more readily. The reality of the fact there were good reasons he had started to become attached to his life at Ghost hit him. But he supposed it was too late now.
"No, I believe that's been mentioned too." she said with a wave of her hand like it wasn't too significant. She continued to look at him. "I just wasn't aware you were a twin." she clarified with intrigue.
"Oh." he replied. "Yeah. I am." Even with Isabelle gone for four years now, he always would be. He wasn't sure why that was so interesting to her, though. It just seemed like another distraction. So even with the realisation of what he would be leaving behind dawning upon him, he had to stick to his convictions. "I agreed to come here because I thought I'd be getting away from death." he said a little bitterly. "What was the point? What was the fucking point?". He turned on his heel and was about to storm out, intent on telling everyone about this. If she wanted to fight fire with fire, then fine; he'd set a trail on his way out that would burn this place to the ground. Before he could unlock the door, however, Sister Imperator's phone began to ring, and admittedly he turned back with just a degree of curiosity. He realised at that point as well that he'd left pages scattered around the floor that he should probably take with him.
Sister looked at Cade reluctantly, but then looked to the phone and picked it up anyway. "Hello?" she answered, glancing back to him a couple of times as she awaited the answer. When she heard the voice on the other end though, her posture changed, sitting up rigidly, but her tone of voice became surprisingly more pleasant. "Oh. How nice to hear from you." Cadence turned more fully and folded his arms, wondering if it was Nihil on the other end. "Oh, you... heard about that." Sister said with a light laugh that sounded almost nervous. "I forget how fast news travels here." She looked back to Cade, as she began seemingly talking at the same time as the person she was speaking to. "Are you sure you don't want me to...?" she asked. "Yes but...I... oh, oh alright." She pressed a button on the phone and put the handset down.
"Cadence Valerio." said a voice on the other end, now on loudspeaker. It was a little jarring to hear one from such an old-looking phone, but Cade supposed it was modified in some way. He looked to Sister uncertainly, but she gave him a serious look, and nodded at him. He unfolded his arms and stepped closer. He couldn't help but note down what he could about the inflection of that voice. The accent sounded closer to his own than many of the Ministry members', the tone not unpleasant, actually kind of warm and inviting. The kind that could really draw one in.
"...Hello." he replied as neutrally as he could, pausing. "I'm sorry, I... don't actually recognise your voice."
"You wouldn't." the voice replied, sounding vaguely amused. "But you may have heard my name around the Ministry." There was a pause. "I am The Old One. It's nice to finally speak with you."
"O-oh." Cade answered. He may not have heard much, but he'd heard enough. Enough to know whoever or whatever The Old One was, he was a big deal. Bigger than Copia or Nihil. Possibly even bigger than Imperator herself? Perhaps he was in much more severe trouble than he'd realised. But he wasn't about to apologise for his comments. It felt too late anyway. "Well... it's a shame it's under these circumstances, but, likewise, I suppose."
"What circumstances do you think we're under?" asked The Old One, again with a surprisingly lighthearted tone.
Cade found that hard to respond to, it felt like a trick question. "Well I... I assume your going to fire me." Perhaps Sister wasn't in charge of that sort of thing, and needed him to give the word. "If not worse." he added with genuine concern, as if somehoe having awareness of that would save him.
A long, low chuckle emerged from the speaker, echoing around the room slightly. Cade felt an odd sting of embarrassment at that, though he didn't know why. "It is very important to question, Cadence." he assured. Sister frowned at that, obviously picking up that her possible superior wasn't actually speaking in her favour. "Extremely so."
"Oh...?" Cadence exclaimed in surprise, realising he might somehow be... getting away with this? "Well I've... always thought so." he agreed uncertainly.
"One of the rather... widespread progeny of Vigor, but human in appearance." he continued as if reading off a file. Cade was aware his grandfather was rather prolific. The man himself had told him to be careful around any Fire or Quintisessence Ghouls, which he was pretty sure was a warning to not have sex with any of them until he'd established they weren't related, not that he'd really desired to do so thusfar. "You were a lawyer in London before you joined Ghost, were you not?" the other continued.
"Um, a legal secretary." Cade corrected. "I studied Law at UCL though, I was about to move into Paralegal."
"Excellent." came the reply. "Then I'm sure you have some experience playing devil's advocate." Cade smiled slightly, perhaps he did, but he still was unsure where this was going. "But do you know much about the origin of the term?" Cade thinks for a moment. He's sure he has read about that, but he doesn't recall it very well.
"It's... from Latin, is it not?" he ventures, not remembering much else of it.
"Correct. The advocatus diaboli was a traditional role in the Catholic church, Mr. Valerio. Their role was to question whether a candidate was worthy of Sainthood." Cade chewed at his lip, listening hard, unsure of the relevance. "I want you to play a similar role in Ghost, Cadence. Simply put; I want you to help assess Copia's suitability as Papa, and to make sure all are as dedicated to our belief system as they claim to be."
Cade's brows knotted together in a much more defined frown, extremely confused. "Are you... promoting me?" he asked, his eyes flicking towards Sister Imperator and seeing her lips purse slightly at the idea, which only seemed to confirm it.
"I am, Cadence." The Old One replied. "From now on you will be known as the Advocatus Angeli."
Cadence had a role. He had an actual role at the Ministry. Something could be good at, something he could enjoy. Suddenly he was oddly giddy with excitement, though he had to try not to show it too much. "Well of course, I... I'll absolutely accept, thank you." he replied a little incredulously. He was surprised Sister wasn't even protesting, she remained sitting there in silence.
"You are very welcome. Put in whatever requests you need regarding your attire and equipment within the next two weeks." he replied, then there was a pause. "May I give you a reminder, however?" he warned. "Your rank is still lower than that of a Cardinal. You are welcome to question your superiors, but please respect them as such." Cade looked sheepishly at Imperator, then over to the chair he'd left lying on the floor. Perhaps he hadn't addressed this in the most professional manner. It was hard not to when the deaths of three good men were in the picture. He gathered up some of the paperwork he'd managed to drop and put it back on the pile he'd left on her desk, then picked the chair back up and slid it back towards the desk as a sign of good faith, but it had him wondering.
"OK, but... can I at least ask the purpose of the current situation?" Cade put forward a little desperately. "You must know... why did the Papas have to die?"
The booming chuckle rang out around the room once more. "Now you're pushing your luck, Advocatus." he replied. "Goodbye for now. Sister... I shall speak with you again soon."
"Goodbye, Old One." she said politely, hanging up the phone. There was silence for a moment. Cade's dark hazel eyes scanned her face, shifting his shoulders slightly. Sister Imperator looked up at him. "You may leave when you are ready, Advocatus." she said in her usual stern tone. "Unless you require anything else?"
Cade shook his head, but it was bugging him a little. "You were so... accepting... of all of that..." he pointed out.
She raised her eyebrows at him. "I meant what I said, Advocatus." she told him. "Even if I don't personally agree... everything is done with greater goals in mind."
Cade continued to look at her, pushing his hair back off of his face. "I'm never going to get used to this place, am I?" he said through subtle laughter
Imperator looked at him for a moment, eyebrows raised again, tilting her head slightly, and then Cade saw something he wasn't sure he'd ever seen from her before. If he had, it certainly hadn't been trained in his direction. Sister smiled slightly. "It's never the easiest for outsiders." she told him. "But you may end up surprising yourself."
He didn't even really know how to respond, but all of a sudden he felt incredibly guilty about how charged everything had got. The Old One was right, he was going to have to control his temper better in future. "I'm... sorry." he said softly.
"No you're not." she scolded, her eyes holding a hint of something almost playful. He guessed she was right on some level. He was too happy about the outcome to genuinely anticipate this having gone any other way. "Run along now, Cadence."
He smiled and nodded, giving her a little bow and picking up his work he'd left on the desk, clutching it back to his chest with one arm. "Until we meet again, Sister." he said with a smile, walking towards the door and glancing back at her as he unlocked and opened it. He slipped out and closed the door behind him with a defined spring in his step, his head so abuzz that he almost bumped into a tall, black and purple-clad figure walking towards the very same office.
Bishop Dante jumped slightly, pushing his black hair back a little where it had fallen over his face even more than normal. "Careful there, Cade." he said in a slightly weary tone. Cadence was close enough friends to the other to see the toll Terzo's death had taken on him in both a professional and personal sense, and frankly, it was heartbreaking.
"Oh!" he exclaimed. "I'm sorry, I um..." Actually the timing was perfect. He was the first person he'd want to tell this, want to tell anything, actually. "Dante I... I finally have a real role here!" he began to babble excitedly. "I've just been appointed the Advocatus Angeli." Despite the grim circumstances of the last month, he couldn't help but smile a little, too.
Dante's brows raised in what looked like a hint of pleasant surprise for a split second, then his face darkened to a slightly confused frown. "What?" he asked as if he was struggling to process the sudden revelation.
"Oh, um, well... it sounds like I'm going to be helping assess whether Copia can be elected Papa and-" he began, but was cut off rather quickly by the Bishop raising a gloved hand.
"No, I'm... familiar with what that entails." he explained quickly, not elaborating on whether he'd known one previously or just had awareness of the concept. He looked instead like he was searching for the words. "I meant... how... why...?" he clarified, greyish-green eyes scanning over Cade with slight suspicion. "Why were you appointed now exactly?"
Cade understood and nodded. "Oh, yeah, got you." he replied, realising he was still a little out of breath from the whole exchange. "Well, I went to talk to Sister about... what happened with the Papas and..." He paused, fingertips fiddling with the edges of the results of his research in his arms. Sister Imperator was like a mother to Dante, he didn't want to break it to him that she might be responsible for the death of the one he loved. He couldn't do that to him. At least not until he was certain. "I guess one thing led to another and... and the next thing I knew, I was speaking to The Old One and he... well, I've just told you." It was hard to get over the exhilaration of it, he'd been waiting so long for this moment. His hand reached out to Dante's forearm, trying to catch the others eyes more directly, make sure he was looking at him. "You um... were actually the first person I wanted to tell..." he said with an unusually coy smile up at his friend, a very slight blush creeping across his face once more.
Dante's eyes flicked towards the hand on his arm, then back to Cade's face, but he didn't smile back. If anything his look of suspicion grew. "Well I'm glad someone got something out of this." he muttered a little coldly.
Cade blinked, a slightly bewildered frown forming on his own face. "Dante..." he responded, a little hurt by that given the circumstances, even if the Bishop didn't actually know of them. "Look I... I know things have been shit lately... I know how hard it must have been for you..."
"Don't." his friend warned, and he could see it in his eyes. See the way he was holding back his temper. His speaking flatly like this... it was a concession in its own way. Stopping himself from expressing the full extent of his feelings on the matter. Trying not to lash out at Cade despite the fact he was clearly hurt. "Just... drop it? Please?"
"You're... you're angry with me." Cade assessed with a mix of surprise, upset, and just a tinge of anger himself that churned his stomach. "Dante, look, I understand wanting to put the blame on someone to make it easier, believe me." he said seriously, seeing as he'd spent days scouring to that effect. "But-"
"I said drop it, Cadence." Dante snapped, jerking his arm from the shorter man's grasp. They stared at each other silently for a moment. Each clearly aware of this sudden uncomfortable shift between them. Then Dante cleared his throat, turned, and began to walk away, and something inside Cade felt like it was being pulled at, something deep within his very core; he felt that if he didn't bring the Bishop back now, immediately, that thread could very well snap and unravel irrepairably.
"Dante!" he called out more desperately than he intended, but there was no reply. "...Weren't you about to see Sister?" he added, but still to no avail. It was hard to know what else to even say. An apology would seem disingenuous because what would he be apologising for exactly? Wanting to tell his best friend the shred of good news amongst a sea of bleakness? What he could do is get angry about that. Light that thread like a fuse, force Dante to confront him back, cling onto that shred of attention. Fight and scream and yell at him.
About how everything he did was in defense of the Papas' names, risking his job, risking his life for all he'd known at the time. About how he'd been there for Dante unrelentingly these past few weeks, doing everything he could to comfort and reassure Dante, to try and make it better even though it unravelled threads of his own grief for Isabelle. About how he stood by and watched how Dante was with Terzo, even when it was difficult, even when it hurt him like hell. Tell him the sheer volume of things he's done over the past 6 months with only his happiness in mind.
But he doesn't. He can't bring himself to do it, to do anything that would hurt the Bishop further, for the very same reasons he did all those other things in the first place.
Because he's his best friend.
Because he's sure he deserves better.
Because he loves him.