instincts vs octokong

Valmont started running, and I lurched blindly along with her, holding her hand like an NBA-sized toddler and trying not to fall down. We crossed what had to have been most of the ballroom before Valmont suddenly stopped. My rented shoes were not exactly hell on wheels for traction, and I all but fell over her before I could stop, too.
“What?” I asked.
“Quiet,” she hissed. “One of those things at the door.”
“You have any more flash-bangs?” I said, lower.
“Most girls don’t even carry the one, you know,” she said rather primly. “I can’t tell you how many jobs I’ve done without a hitch since the last time I saw you, Dresden. You walk through the door and everything goes to hell.”
“That’s embroidered on my towels, actually,” I said. I blinked my eyes hard, several times, and could barely make out the shape of one of the octokongs waiting at the door. Well, technically, it was waiting over the door, its tentacles spread out along the ceiling, sticking to it like some enormous spider, apelike arms hanging down. Valmont had stopped us behind a column, deep in the shadows created by the emergency lights in the hallway beyond the octokong. “Wow, those things are ugly.” I blinked some more. “Okay, stay close.”
“Can you see?”
“Yeah, almost. We’ll make a run for it. If it comes at us, I’ll knock it away and we meep-meep right the hell out of here.”
“Meep-meep.” Valmont’s voice was dry. “It’s so nice to work with a mature professional.”
“Fine. We extract, exfiltrate, whatever,” I said. I changed hands, shifting hers to my left, making sure my right was free. “Here we go.”
And we ran for the door.
The octokong started slorping down the wall, all tentacles and slime and harsh, ugly grunting sounds, but it didn’t just drop, and though I was ready to unleash another blast of force at it, we scooted by a couple of inches ahead of the nearest tentacle tip, and into the hallway, free and clear, even more easily than I’d planned.
So naturally, alarm bells started going off in my head.
There was a doorway across the hall, and I didn’t slow down. I lowered my shoulder and hit it with the weight of my entire body, and with the full power of the Winter Knight.
I don’t wanna say I’m strong when I’ve got my Winter Knight on—but I’ve lifted cars. Maybe it isn’t really comic-book-style superstrength, but I’m a big guy, I’m no lightweight, and that door splintered, its lock tearing free of its wooden frame as if it had already half rotted out. I went through it, my shoulder sending up a hot pulse of discomfort, dragging Valmont with me.
The second octokong had been waiting on the inside of the hallway, already plunging down at us, and if we’d paused for even a fraction of a second, it would have nabbed us both. Instead, I crashed into a rack of brooms and mops at the back of a large cleaning closet, snapping several handles and putting a huge dent in the drywall. I sort of bounced off of it, my eyes still blurry with spots, stunned.


Skin Game Chapter 10, Page 70-71