"Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'Here are our monsters,' without immediately turning the monsters into pets."

– Jacques Derrida

I was nervous, even before the bus hit Monstertown. I often got upset with myself for being nervous, but now was fair, surely? People were often anxious before a job interview, any job interview. And I hadn't had a job for so so long. 

My mum was becoming increasingly worried that she'd approach her old age with her daughter still sleeping on the couch. I understood her not-so-subtle hints about hindering her – apparently much better than mine – sex life. I definitely understood my spine's couch-based complaints. So, yeah, new job, actual rent money, a real fucking bed, was very much needed.

But the job was in Monstertown, MIXZ, the Midlands Interdimensional Crossover Zone, and… look, I'm not racist, but it is a bit unnerving in there. 

Oh god, I'm not racist? Fucking hell, Rosemary, perhaps you should talk about how some of your best friends are monsters? Oh, you haven't got any friends? Not even humans? Damn, that probably explains why you're losing your mind talking to yourself on the bus.

Okay. I brought up the interview letter on my phone. I could do this. Probably. The advert had been rather vague. I mean, "Admin. Assistant," that was the main thing, no problem. "Troubleshooter wanted" was a bit strange, as was "General and Particular skills" on its own. "Likes dogs" was kind of weird, but I do, so fine? "Friendly disposition," well, that might be a problem. I am friendly. But my friends drifted away while I was depressed. When I'm anxious or embarrassed or sad, I am either too talkative, glib even, or silent and off-putting. I would pretend to be normal.

I mean, the CV and cover letter must have been friendly enough, or they wouldn't have asked me in.

I glanced out at the city, trying to get my nerves under control. Whatever weird negotiations had taken place to agree the zones' placement, they had pitched this one into one of the poorest and most populous parts of the city. There had been a lot of unpleasant compulsory purchase orders as the human population was largely moved out. I remembered the concrete barricades and burnt out cars of that period, although, of course, there is no sign of it now. Out of the window, I saw mostly independent stores amongst the chains; grocers, butchers, newsagents. Signage in English, Urdu, Polish, Gujarati and Phoenician. Many of them were capitalising on their closeness to the Zone with "Monster Sections". I wasn't sure whether they were trying to appeal to humans who weren't quite ready to go into the Zone, or the monsters that passed through the area on their way to and from work. I had seen a couple already. A pretty blue-haired monoeye was doing some shopping, a beaded bag and long skirt flapping in the breeze. An alraune – maybe a poppy type – in a gray jumper was awkwardly eating something outside Greggs, English sunshine not being enough. I wondered, if I got this job in Monstertown, I could get a monster-girlfriend? That was another thing not helped by sleeping on my mum's couch. 

The bus was getting closer to the Zone now, and most of the humans had gotten off. Of those that remained, three were obviously tourists, the other two were harder to place. Maybe just more subtle tourists, or maybe they had jobs in the Zone. It was a bit too early in the day for monsterfuckers.

The bus stopped outside the ornate gates of trolual ivory. A trolual is a kind of whale with tusks, I looked it up. The speakers blared out announcements about the arcane border, warnings about the Zone laws, a reminder not to bring any magical artefacts without the proper certification sigil; all boilerplate stuff. When the announcements had played and it was clear that no-one else was getting off, the driver eased the bus through the pink barrier.

This wasn't my first time, of course. When I'd been employed, I'd gone to get elixirs that would have been many times more expensive if done as human surgeries. I did a lot of research online then, too. I was worried that they'd reject me, but the old mandragora apothecary had found it all very boring. An ointment to remove a nobbly cleft chin, a potion to make my voice softer, a salve to bring my breasts closer together, something to adjust certain hormonal counter effects. Expensive but within the realms of saving up for, well, at least when I had a job. So this wasn't my first time through the barrier. It was… actually quite nice; tingly, and it felt like someone was softly kissing your neck. Well, it did to me. I hadn't asked anyone else about that bit.

When the tingling faded, we were technically in two dimensions at once; Earth and Terat. Terat's moon, twice the size of ours, and glowing with arcane energy, shared the sky with our Sun.

Although, to be fair, this was very much tourist trap Terat; the wide street that the bus now rolled down was theme-park Monstertown. Earthgate Street, they called it. There were dryad and slime restaurants, sphinx gambling halls, minotaur bars, a mermaid and siren dancing club, a vampire bookshop, a succubus massage parlor, and more. Many were still opening up. Signs in English, but given an extra Phoenician flare in the serifs. Plaster and concrete painted to look like growstone; we were too close to the entrance for real growstone to survive. 

Hey, maybe if this job comes to nothing, I could use the research and become a tour guide or something. Well, except that is entirely counter to my abilities. No, I had to get this bloody job.

***

The bus finally reached its terminus, a concrete statue showing cubist mermaids and humans shaking hands. I got off, thanking the driver. The rest of the way I would go on foot. This was about the limit of how far motorised transport could go, anyway; magic had a strange effect on it. No-one wanted a bus that fed on blood, or had thirteen howling skulls for an engine. 

The statue was obviously human made, but around the edge of the pool was growstone, shaped into impressive loops and filigrees, the thin veins of magic glowing blue. Perhaps that is what caused the water to look unusually clean and sparkling for urban fountainry. A naiad was in there picking coins from the bottom into a mesh bag; she gave me an appraising look and then turned away.

My destination should be relatively close; I didn't dare use my phone to check, but I had tried to commit the map to memory. A straight shot down Absquatulate Lane to Strigil Circus. I wondered what those roads had been called when this had been a human suburb. I was fairly certain I could find Strigil Circus; it was the center of the MIXZ, and the location of the Gates of Horn into Terat proper.

This far in, there weren't many humans about, and frankly some of those that were seemed pretty furtive. Otherwise, it was all terats; some of which I could name the species for, many of which I could not. Claws and horns and tails and hooves. Most walked, some cycled, or used rickshaws, or sat atop bugs the size of horses. 

I got stared at for a few seconds, and then very obviously dismissed. I tried not to stare back and hurried on down Absquatulate Lane. The houses and shops here were a mixture of human architecture with growstone additions. A normal house merged with a giant beehive. A newsagents slash magic shop that was partially a giant mushroom. Goblin girls sitting in the windows of a house that was mostly subsumed into growstone. 

Strigil Circus I could see from some way off; the gate was much more heavily guarded than the Earthside gate. The agreement was very specific about numbers. In their red uniforms, the Terat Guard were highly visible, and the fact that they were mostly bulky minotaurs and centaurs also helped. The blue uniforms of the British police were harder to spot; they were an armed unit, their guns burdened with charms and blessings to ensure that they didn't turn into a bundle of snakes. Just in case, they also carried the British Constabulary Sword; an industrially designed sword, with any coolness carefully hammered out. ACAB, even sword carrying Cs.

The gate itself stood in the centre of the circus, a prism of red light surrounded by an elaborate cupola. The whole thing was protected by a thick wrought-iron fence, again glowing with magic. As I watched, a pair of centaurs, Terat Guards, were escorting a reluctant and dishevelled bunny girl towards the gate, shoving her into the redness. I got the vague impression of hands reaching for her. The gate pulsed. A few seconds later and it pulsed again, like a heartbeat, and a nervous looking faun came through, carrying one of those blankets on a stick that I'd only seen in cartoons. One out, one in.

Okay, the building I was looking for had to be one of the ones on this circle. They all seemed official in some unclear way, austere with growstone pillars and darkened windows. They had names like 'Blemmyes House', 'Ercinee Annexe', and the like, printed on the signage in tiny English type after what I assumed was the Phoenician equivalent. I was looking for 'Canocephalus Folly'. When I found it, it turned out to be something along the lines of an old blue brick-built Methodist church, made baroque by curlicues of growstone. Outside the grand double-doors was a huge sphinx, presumably guarding. She looked at me as I approached the door; she was impressively muscled, and I was a bit worried.

"Um, can I go in?" I asked.

She smiled and gestured at the door. 

"Oh, good," I said. "I half thought you were going to ask me a riddle or something."

Her eyes lit up. "Do you want a riddle?" 

"Er, no, sorry," I said.

She looked disappointed, but nodded, gesturing to the door again. I nodded apologetically and entered the building. Beyond the doors was a short vestibule, and another set of doors. A small sign read, well, something, and the "Zone Council (Advisory)" in English. Council? 

The reception was long and dark, undecorated except for a desk and a couple of doors. Behind the desk sat a... deer girl, I guess? Her horns were tree-like, half as tall as she was, wreathed in flowers. She wore a slightly ratty flannel shirt, and did not look up from her book as I entered.

"Um," I said, "I'm Rosemary Dulahan, I'm here for an interview, but I'm a bit early."

The deer girl glanced at me for a moment, and pointed at the centre door.

"It's just that I'm earlier than expected, so I don't…"

The deer girl pointed at the door again.

Okay. I opened the door. Charm mode on. Anxiety mode also on, whether I liked it or not.

There was a lot of the old church left in this room. The floors were wooden tiles, herringbone pattern, dark. Windows, high enough that you couldn't see out of them, let in shafts of pale sunlight, but left the ground level dim. There were no pews and no altar but a raised section, covered with encaustic tiles, in a modest pattern. In this section was a near circle of desks, at which five figures sat, equidistant from each other. An assistant, I guess, sat behind one of them. 

In the centre of the desks was a wooden chair, reachable by a gap in the circumference. I guessed that was where I was meant to sit? Not intimidating at all. Okay, Rose, be normal. 

My interviewers were, of course, all monsters. In the centre was a lamia, to her left and right, an arachne and a harpy, and taking up the final two places, a slime girl and a… well, human, I guessed at first. But no, there were downcast ears among her hair, and maybe a tail in the shadows. 

As I was sitting down, the figure in the centre asked me something in an unknown language. She was, as I mentioned, a lamia, a snake girl, with a long serpentine body that vanished into darkness. She had a mass of wavy red hair, a Greek-style toga, and a sword on her silver belt. 

"Oh sorry, I don't speak, um, Phoenician?" I guessed.

"One of the Inner Archipelago languages, then?" she asked, evidently surprised, but in excellent, slightly sibilant, English. "Or Molly can speak the tongues of the Interstice Caverns. And Cass knows some of the languages of the Outer Spiral."

"Um, just English," I said. "And I suppose some GCSE French."

"Oh," she said. "Why?"

"Well, it was that or German, and I thought-"

"She meant," said the figure on the lamia's right, the harpy, sounding bored, "why don't you know Phoenician? Or any terat languages."

Oh yes, this interview was going great. They should have put languages on the job ad, if it was that important.

This second interlocutor was raven-like, sharp. Black feathers and white skin, her make-up dark as well. A necklace made of onyx bars hung above a black tee-shirt.

"Because I was never taught it?" I said. "I suppose they never thought I be up for a job in mons- the MIXZ."

"But your parents were both dullahans?" asked the lamia. She was flicking through the papers in front of her. The harpy whispered something to her maid, and the maid ordered the papers for her. 

"Well, no, they didn't actually marry, so a Dulahan and a Murray, I suppose," I said. I did not understand the point of these questions. 

"A Murray?" said the harpy.

"But you're a dullahan?" said the lamia.

"Yes," I said, "I took my father's-"

"Why aren't you wearing a scarf?" asked the lamia.

What? "Well, it isn't actually all that cold out," I said.

"Have you had magical alterations to your body?" asked the lamia. 

"That's none of your business!" I snapped.

"That's true," said the lamia. "I apologise. I was just trying to work out why your head remained attached."

"What? Is that some sort of threat?"

"No," said the lamia, seemingly nonplussed.

"Um…" said the slime girl. I turned to look. She was pretty actually, a little shorter than me, very curvy, and was generally human-looking, apart from bunny ears, and the whole being made out of translucent blue gel thing. She looked somewhat shamefaced.

"Hell's claws," said the arachne. I'm a bit scared of spiders. She was like a spider-centaur; the lower half of her body was a spider's abdomen. She wasn't using a chair; eight legs – six pointy – kept her off the ground. She wore a somewhat scruffy suit on her upper body, and six unblinking eyes stared at me. "Your name is Rosemary Dulahan?"

"Yes," I said, completely confused.

"But that's just a surname," the arachne said. "You're not an actual dullahan?"

"Sorry, what?" I said. "A dullahan? What's a dullahan?"

"I think I made a mistake," said the slime girl quietly. 

"A headless horseman, usually," said the harpy, "I mean, who rides a horse, not part horse. Carries their head in their hands. That doesn't seem to be you."

"No," I agreed, although head-in-hands sounded like an idea. "My head stays where it is. And I don't like horses."

"You're human?!" said the lamia. "I mean... you're human?"

"Um, yes."

"Bunny?" said the lamia, accusingly.

"I made a mistake," said Bunny, quietly. "It's easily done. I assumed that was her type. She had a good vibe, and I thought…"

"Bunny, dear," said the lamia, "Am I Lyssa Lamia? Is Cass actually Cassandra Harpy?"

"No," said Bunny. "Look, I'm sorry."

"Fine," said the lamia, Lyssa, flicking her tail in irritation. "Apologies, human Rosemary Dulahan, for the confusion, but we are looking at candidates who… more closely align with the aims of the Advisory Council."

"You're not even going to interview me?" I said.

"There aren't any more candidates," blurted out Bunny.

"What?" asked Lyssa. 

Cassandra laughed.

"Well, there weren't many anyway," said Bunny. "You know the council is a bit of a joke. But I got a good vibe off this one, so I threw the other applications away."

Lyssa stood unblinking, body rigid.

"Might as well vote on it," said Cassandra, shaking out her wings. 

"Vote?" said Lyssa.

"I'm sure this Rosemary is lovely," said the arachne, "but it's going to look pretty embarrassing if the council gets a human to solve their problems."

"Also pretty embarrassing if we can't hire anyone because our interview process was stu… mistake-prone," said Cassandra. "Sorry, Bunny."

"Right, we should vote," said Bunny, blue jelly turning slightly pinkish. "I vote yes; I still think she's got a good vibe, even if she's human."

Lyssa sighed. "Properly then, Bunny. In the matter of giving this human, Rosemary Dulahan, the Administrator position, how does the council decide?"

"Er, Councillor Bunny Mellowmarsh, Insubstantial caucus, assents," Bunny said.

"Shouldn't you, you know, interview me?" I said. I don't know why, I really needed this job. This hadn't been covered in my interview prep.

"Please be silent, Rosemary Dulahan," said Lyssa.

"I'm in too," said the harpy, yawning. "Could be interesting. Councillor Cassandra Ransley, Mythological caucus, assents."

"Well, in case there was any doubt," said the lamia, primly, "I do not. Chief Councillor Lyssa Vexillum, Noble caucus, dissents. Molly?"

"Me too," said the arachne. "Nothing personal, just the politics of the thing. Councillor Molly Sableshade, Nature caucus, dissents."

They all turned to look at the fifth member, who hadn't spoken yet. I awkwardly shifted around in my chair. She was small, made smaller by looking down and hunching over a pad she was doodling in. Her hair was dark, and her eyes were too, dark flint, when she looked up for a split second. 

"... I mean, I suppose," she said, in a quiet mumble. "She don't smell bad. Councillor Astrid Cherrisse, Ambersky pack, Supernatural caucus, assents."

Lyssa sat back. "Fine, absolutely fine," she said. "The position is yours, human Rosemary Dulahan, at least on a temporary basis."

"Shouldn't you ask me if I want it?" I said. I really did need this job; it just didn't seem right to give it to me like this.

"Do you want it?" snapped Lyssa, a faint hiss under the words.

"Well, yes," I said, awkwardly. "But I could do with knowing what the role entails."

"Bunny will fill you in on those matters," said Lyssa, turning toward the slime girl. "Bunny, onboard her. You give her Phoenician. Explain the job and our challenges. Rosemary Dulahan, you live on Earth?"

"Er, yes."

"Find her somewhere local to live, expense it," Lyssa continued. "No more council business today. I'm going home to constrict something."

The lamia took her ridiculous length towards the door, not actually stomping – lacking feet – but giving the distinct impression that she would if she could.

At the door, she turned to face back. "Tomorrow, we will talk about our communication strategy regarding the incident again. Maybe set up better liaison with the Terat Guard. Let's hope our new human Administrator can keep us on track," she said, before flowing out of the door.

I looked around in dawning shock. I had a job. Admittedly, it was with monsters, slightly unhinged monsters, but it was a job.

Bunny looked over at me, smiling. "Congratulations," she said, gel sparkling.