burning through kraken

Then a third tentacle, this one much slenderer, whipped around my forehead, and I could feel the crackling sound as dozens of tiny teeth crunched through my skin and found purchase in the bone of my skull.
That’s the kind of noise that will make you panic right quick.
My head slammed against something and there were a lot of lights, and then my head and my feet suddenly got pulled in opposite directions.
I seized the tentacle that had me by the head and pulled hard enough to get enough counterpressure to keep it from snapping my neck—and it left me suspended uncomfortably, stretched out between the overwhelming opposing forces, just trying to hang on.
Story of my freaking life.
Harry Dresden, professional wizard. I’m a little busy or I’d shake hands.
I pulled hard with my entire upper body, and the tentacle, though incredibly powerful, stretched like a rubber band and loosened slightly, enough to let me gasp out a quick incantation: “Infusiarus!”
A sphere of green-gold fire, bright as a tiny sun, kindled to life in the cup of my right hand—which happened to be grasping a freaking tentacle of a kraken.
The creature itself apparently couldn’t make sounds—but it shuddered in pain, twisting and jerking away from the sudden fire, and the Water Beetle screamed in agony as the beast thrashed.
I shrieked as my head was encircled by a band of fire from the tentacles biting in—only to vanish into the weird cold-static sensation that the Winter mantle had used to replace most sensations of pain. The noise of it was incredibly loud, at least to me, as the scraping against my skull conducted the sound directly into my ear bones. Hot blood began to trickle down my face and ears and the back of my neck—scalp wounds bleed like you wouldn’t believe, and I’d just gotten dozens of them.
I cried out and forced more energy into the spell in my hands, and my little ball of sunshine blazed like an acetylene torch. There was the sharp scent of scorched meat, and the tentacle suddenly snapped, burning through, and I came down on the deck hard, forearms slamming against the boards.
An instant later, the tentacles that were wrapped around my ankles whipped me into the air and slammed me into the bitterly cold waters of Lake Michigan.


Battle Ground Chapter 2, Page 8-9