Spectres

The Spectres are major antagonists in the trilogy His Dark Materials, setting the scenario for a zombie Apocalypse-like landscape that reigns in the world of Cittagaze, the city of the magpies. The Spectres came to Cittagaze through a dimensional portal, when one of the First Academics was taking apart atoms, he took apart atom upon atom, and cut into the smallest atom he could find. This served as a gate to another universe, akin to Hell, upon which all the Spectres were packed inside, and burst forth upon the first incision. The Spectres flocked out, and presumably ate all the daemons of the Academics who released them. The Spectres were formidable foes, and they destroyed the civilization in the Cittagaze world, not just in that city, but in the whole planet it was on.

==Nature= The Spectres exist by flocking around one's daemon. Adults can see them, but children cannot. This is because adults gather Dust, which is sentience, and experience, and this is what the Spectres hate, so they converge on adults and eat their daemons. This causes society to stop functioning, because "at any moment a father might be taken, or a banker, and his enterprise fall apart..." and "how can lovers keep their vows?" The Spectres are intangible, and cannot be harmed by weaponry. They cannot be killed or damaged at all, save for one or two things - the Subtle Knife, asahettar, itself, because it is made to harm everything, flesh or spirit, and also human ghosts, because, being dead, they need fear nothing.

The Spectres are immortal, and it can be said Death is their downfall. Ironically the thing they want to destroy most, experience, becomes their downfall because the ghosts of the human adults can fight them and vaporize them. The Spectres don't do that and they are powerless against ghosts.

Role in His Dark Materials
The Spectres are dominant in The Subtle Knife because they have come through the gateway between worlds and eaten almost every adult daemon in the world, leaving their humans as decaying husks which have no conscience. The Spectres are invisible to children, such as Will, and this becomes apparent in a seemingly desolate, barren world. The Spectres are first mentioned by Angelica, a child refugee from the city, who says that the Spectres ate everyone and left the world barren. Her younger brother Tullio remarks they have an older brother in the city, and he says "He's gonna get -" but Angelica smacks him and this is obviously meant to be a secret.

Later, it is Sir Charles Latrom, who is in fact Lord Boreal from Lyra's world, who mentions the Spectres. He says he would go through and get the Knife himself, but cannot because the Specters would eat him, implying he has a daemon, which he does. Sir Charles asks Will to get the Knife, and Will gets the weapon after fighting Angelica's brother, who is insane, but Will wins. Angelica's brother then goes into a coma and is eaten by Spectres and the children vow revenge.

The old man, Giacomo Paradisi, who was being held captive because he had the Knife in his possession, is released by Will and Paradisi says that Will is now the bearer. So, Will has to accept his destiny and let the old man drug himself into death because it is the only way for the old man to escape the Spectres.

The old man had told Will the Spectres fear the Knife, and this comes in useful in the quest with the witches many times. Will protects the witches from the Spectres, and the Spectres are soon revealed to be under Marisa Coulter's control. The Spectres are commanded by Coulter to fly "she makes them forget they are earthbound" and attack the witches and Lyra, and Coulter takes Lyra when she sees Will is absent. The Spectres eat the witches' daemons, and kill the witches. But Will is rescued by the angels Balthamos and Baruch.

The Spectres return in the third book, The Amber Spyglass, where they engage in the war against Lord Asriel. They have the upper hand at first, eating all the daemons on the battlefield they find, but soon the ghosts break out of the Underworld, led by Will and Lyra, and they soon begin to get torn apart by the ghosts. Soon the Spectres are all diminished in number, enough to become scarce.

It is revealed, the only way to defeat a Spectre for good is to close all the windows the bearers of the Knife have made, because each time one opens a window, they disturb Dust, creating a Spectre.