I suppose that by now, Willie's first priority has to be protecting Barnabas. And I'm sure he doesn't want people to know that he's enslaved to a vampire--he's already been in trouble with the law and could face life in the slammer (as an accessory) or in an insane asylum. He's in a lose/lose situation. But later, when Willie finds out that Barnabas swapped slides, he babbles, I knew you'd protect me.
Doc Woodard acknowledges that some people are reluctant to give up their blood. Barnabas waxes rhapsodic while the doc performs the venipuncture: In a way, isn’t that understandable? he says. After all, blood is the life force. It reaches into the deepest recesses of both the heart and the brain. It is the familiar of our complete being. To surrender even one drop of it is to suggest a partial surrender of one’s utmost self.
Barnabas asks to see the slide, and the doctor hands it to him, warning him to handle it by the edges. This is almost certainly, Barnabas's first-hand experience of modern medicine. They talk briefly about whoever trashed the doctor's office, and Woodard wonders whether it was a man or a beast who had such tremendous strength. Barnabas replies, In that case, whoever it is must be at the same time more than a man and less than a man. You sound almost sorry for him, the doctor observes. Barnabas disagrees: I loathe him. I loathe him very, very deeply.
