Number 13 C - I can Taste the Blood - Vision 3 - Joe Schwartz

Another complete change of pace.  This is a hard boiled crime story  told in a brisk hardboiled prose.  Two paid thugs kidnap a girl on behalf of "the caretaker". The narrator, Sam, is oddly sympathetic as he details his violent past and the tasks he's already completed for his unseen paymaster.

This is possibly just in comparison to the character of Joe, an unflinching psychopath whose first action in the story is an act of unspeakable animal cruelty.

Both Sam and Joe are impeccably drawn and almost step out of the page. Thankfully this isn't actually possible. Neither of them are people you would ever want to meet in real life but their story is totally compelling.

This story of a kidnap gone awry is the most straightforward narrative so far in the book, although I did not see that ending coming. I love a writer who can sideswipe me like that so I will certainly be hunting down his work as well.

Irritating nit pick - at one point in this story, "bleed" is used instead of "bled". 

Judging which story is best in this collection is going to be a difficult task.  It's turning into exactly what I hoped for when I saw what the concept was behind the book.  Take one title, give it to vastly different writers and see what they come up with.  Variety certainly is the spice of life.