First Lines of Sergei Lukyanenko's "Night Watch"

"The escalator crept along slowly, straining upward. In an old station like this, what else could you expect? But the wind swirled like a wild thing inside the concrete pipe--ruffling his hair, tugging the hood off of his head, sneaking under his scarf, pressing him downward.
The wind didn't want Egor to go up."

- Sergei Lukyanenko (translated by Andrew Bromfield), from Night Watch.

A fabulously entertaining book about a centuries-old struggle between the forces of light and dark that I picked up on the strength of the popular Russian film. So far, it's a very quick read infused with very interesting philosophical ideas and (to me) exotic Russian mysticism and fatalism. Hard to put down!